CENTON
Centon is a "camera store photographic brand" sold in the numerous Jessops
camera outlets in the United Kingdom (AKA, Great Britain, UK, England, etc.).
Jessops sold lots of SLR cameras over the years, including Minolta's,
but one of these many SLR cameras that used the Minolta lens mount was not
labeled "Minolta".
Centon DF-300
The Centon DF-300 is just a variant of the Seagull DF-300 (model B) -- which is just a variant of the Minolta X-370n.
It has speeds of 4 - 1/1,000 (in auto mode) and 1 - 1,000 (in manual mode), plus B. It has a cloth, horizontal shutter that does not use the batteries, but you can't turn the camera ON without them. It features TTL metering, and the camera can be used in manual, metered-manual, or aperture-priority automatic exposure modes. A shutter speed scale with LED's is displayed in the viewfinder. Like the Minolta X-370n, the Centon DF-300 lacks a stop down button and PC connection. There is a motor-drive connection, however, which can accept the Minolta auto-winder G, as well as several Chinese auto-winders which offer single or continuous operation -- similar to, but not as fast as, the Minolta Motor Drive 1. But Centon produced a special auto-winder -- model M-1TR -- which was also sold by Soligor and Spiratone.
It is slightly larger that the typical auto-winder, but it offers many additional features.
First, it can be set for the standard Minolta XG use with selections of OFF, CONTINUOUS, or TIMER. Second, it can be set for the standard Minolta XG-M/X-570/X-700 use with selections of OFF, SINGLE, CONTINUOUS, or TIMER. Next, it has a timer that can be set for exposures at 5s, 30s, 1m, or 5m intervals. Lastly, it has a remote release cord. It can be used on any camera that accepts Minolta-type autowinders, but the features will depend on the camera, of course.
Apparently, the camera sold quite well, but no other Seagull models were sold by Jessops for some reason. It is normally seen with a Centon 50mm f1.8, but Centon -- OOPS, I mean Seagull -- also made several other lenses with a Minolta lens mount and the Centon name:
28-70mm f3.5/4.5 one-touch zoom
70-210mm f4.0/5.6 one-touch zoom
28-200mm f4.0/5.6 one-touch zoom
500mm f8.0 catadioptric telephoto
These lenses were also available in other lens mounts, such as Pentax, Nikon, etc.
There were a few other 35mm SLR cameras that were sold by Jessops under the Centon label, such as the K100, K200, and K400, but the Centon DF-300 was their best seller:
And although the K200 and K400 used the exact same body as the DF-300, they all used a Pentax K mount, and not a Minolta lens mount.
| Shutter | Shutter speeds |
Flash synch speed |
TTL meter- ing? |
ISO settings |
Auto expo- sure? |
AE lock? |
View- finder info |
Flash shoe |
Sensa- switch? |
PC plug? |
Multi- expo- sure? |
Cable release plug? |
Stop down button? |
Self timer? |
Mirror lock-up? |
Motor drive option? |
Battery used for |
Film indicator |
|
| Centon DF-300 | cloth, horizontal |
4-1,000 B |
1/60 | Y | 12- 3200 |
Y | Y | Shutter speed scale |
Dedicated | Y | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | Y | meter | Window |