I bought my Minolta X-700 back in March and took a quick liking to it and was very pleased with the results I had gotten with the first two rolls I had taken with it.
Initially, I used reliable color film. I shot my first roll with Kodak Gold 200 and the second roll with Kodak Portra 400.
After those successful rolls, I was interested in seeing some results using black and white film. I decided to try out a roll of Fomapan profi line action 400 I had gotten from the Casual Photophile Film Club.
I had never used any Fomapan film before so didn’t know what to expect. I was very happy with the results. Other than a couple of under-exposed shots, my pictures came out quite well. The Fomapan has a nice level of contrast and not much grain.
I first took a handful of pictures in our neighborhood using my Quantaray 28mm f/2.8 lens.
I took a few indoor pictures. One was of the recent addition of The Child to our self-isolated lives. I took this with the Quantaray 28mm f/2.8 as well.
When got my new Yashica Mat 124G, I had set-up a still life as a way of testing it. I decided to also take a shot with my Minolta X-700, switching to the Minolta MD 50mm f/1.7 lens that came with it.
One thing I occasionally do which gets on my own nerves is to go out to take pictures and somehow come home with only 1 or 2 shots left on the roll, which often leads to my taking some kind of perfunctory photo either out our window or of something in our apartment. This time, I finished the roll with a photo of some tomatoes and peppers.
The rest of the roll, taken with the Minolta MD 50mm f/1.7 lens, was from a couple of walks around our neighborhood. One of which was to go to a nearby building demolition that had unearthed a couple of old printing presses.
The rest of the shots were just from our aimless wandering.
As I mentioned before, between the heat of the summer and not traveling because of the pandemic, a lot of our recent photo walks have been in our neighborhood. In a way, that made things feel a little boring. But in another way, that presented an interesting challenge to try to find new photos in places I had often wandered through.
Khürt Williams
You are doing very well with your Minolta X-700. I have had mine for just a few weeks and shot only two rolls, one of which was a success (Portra 160) and the other less so (Ektachrome 100M).
Do you have any tips on using the X-700?
Tom
I’m only 3 rolls into using the Minolta X-700 so I’m not sure I have a lot of tips yet. I shoot almost exclusively in aperture priority which is a nice feature of the X-700. I also started by using a couple of films I was already familiar with and knew to be reliable so I would be able to compare results with pictures taken with other cameras. I haven’t used the Ektachrome you used but since the pictures you took with the Portra turned out well, I’m inclined to say that the Ektachrome might not have been the right film for that situations. If you have a go-to film, I’d suggest trying that with the X-700.
Khürt Williams
When this is all over you and I must meet up and do a walk of wherever you think is interesting. I “discovered” the streets Center City last year while undergoing treatments and surgeries on my eyes. I’d love to explore more.
Tom
That’s a great suggestion. We definitely should. I would enjoy showing you around. And we would probably need to stop somewhere for a beer since that seems like another shared interest!