Minolta Sightseer Zoom

$157.00

INCLUDED ITEMS:

Minolta Sightseer Zoom 35mm film camera
Minolta case
Strap
CR123A battery
Roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 (may vary due to availability)

CONDITION: Pre-owned. Film tested and fully working. Excellent condition, with only minor surface wear. Seven photos from the test roll (taken with Kodak Portra 160) can be viewed in the images.

MORE ABOUT THIS CAMERA: The Sightseer Zoom is a modern yet fairly straight-forward film camera that was manufactured by Minolta from 1998 to 2001. It was also sold under the name Minolta Riva Zoom 70 in certain regions worldwide. It retailed for 690 Francs in France in the late Nineties, which translates to around about $245 AUD in today's terms, and you can tell by the bulky construction and limited specs that it wasn't intended to be a high end model. It does still have the ability to take very nice photos, whether in daylight or at night with its capable flash. The lens is an f/5.3 autofocus Minolta Aspherical Zoom Lens with a zoom range from 35mm to 70mm, offering a nice amount of zoom without getting silly with an unnecessarily large range. The flash has an 8 second recharge time, which is fairly standard amongst comparable cameras. Where we find this camera a bit limiting is around some of the technical specs. It offers DX decoding for film between 100 and 400 ISO, which covers most people's needs however isn't amazing if you wish to shoot 800 ISO film or higher. The shutter speed is in a fairly limited range as well, with a maximum speed of 1/200 seconds, which will be a little challenging if you wish to shoot 400 ISO film on a bright day, and the way to combat this is by using 100 or 200 ISO film instead when its sunny. But despite all this, we've always had really nice results with this camera and recommend just keeping in mind some of its limitations. On the upside it has a few great features not always found on other similar point and shoots such as a built-in lens shield (a sliding door that covers the lens and also functions as the on/off switch), automatic rewind (as well as manual rewind), red-eye reduction, and a tripod mount. It runs off one CR123A battery making it quite economical to run, and the battery life is around 15 rolls (when using 24 exposure film with flash in use 50% of the time). The photos it takes are usually in focus and generally have fairly strong contrast and a nice balance of colours which are quite true to reality. Takes 1x CR123A battery.

YEAR RELEASED:  1998
LENS: Minolta Aspherical Zoom Lens
FOCAL LENGTH: 35mm - 70mm
APERTURE:  f/5.3 - f/9.8
SHUTTER SPEED: 1/200 sec - 1/15 sec
AUTOFOCUS:  Yes
FOCUS LOCK:  Yes
INFINITY FOCUS MODE:  No
MACRO MODE:  No
CLOSEST FOCUS DISTANCE: 1.3m
DX READING: 100 ISO - 400 ISO
LCD PANEL:  Yes
FILM CONFIRMATION WINDOW:  Yes
FLASH: Auto (plus flash-on, and flash-off modes)
RED EYE REDUCTION:  Yes
FLASH RELOAD TIME: 8 sec
SELF-TIMER:  Yes
FILM ADVANCE/REWIND: Auto advance / auto rewind (and forced rewind button)
TRIPOD SOCKET:  Yes
POWER SOURCE: 1x CR123A battery

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