MINOLTA HALF FRAME CAMERAS
(1962) The Repo was Minolta's attempt to break into the lucrative half-frame market. The attempt would last for two years. This original version of the Repo had a 30mm, manually-focusing (f2.8 - 16.0) lens with close-focusing to two feet! A selenium meter on the front of the camera displays "match-needle" exposure information in a window on the top of the camera. The camera has shutter speeds of 1/30 - 1/250, plus B. The exposure system is similar to the Canon Demi and Konica Eye of the same time period. The aperture and shutter speed are controlled together by turning a single ring around the lens. Let's face it, there just wasn't room for two rings -- one for the shutter speed and one for the f-stop. At one end of the scale, the camera sets 1/30 at f2.8. Turning the ring all the way produces 1/250 at f16. On the Demi, the f-stop and shutter speed are displayed on the lens ring, but on the Repo it only shows EV numbers. While this makes manual exposure settings very difficult, it makes things easier if you have a meter with an EV number readout -- which was pretty common in those days. Your hand-held meter gave you one number instead of two, so setting the camera exposure was very easy. The only issue was "Why use a hand-held meter when the camera has a built-in meter?" Most hand-held meters at the time were as big -- or bigger -- than the Repo itself! This was just one of the reasons that the Repo didn't sell well. At least it had a built in cold, flash-shoe and PC contact which many small cameras lacked. For flash use, a separate aperture scale is used, which sets the shutter speed to 1/30 -- great for night shots without a flash. The exposure ring also has a "B" setting which sets the f-stop to f2.8 -- great for long exposures. Tripod socket and cable release socket. 25mm filter thread. Uses a D39KA lens shade. Film speeds from 10 - 400. Available in chrome or black versions.
(1962) This is an "updated" version that came out one year later. It had the same features and was nearly identical in appearance. The original has a frame around the viewfinder and the selenium cell, while the updated version did not. The top plate on the original was raised slighty just above the meter and viewfinder, while the updated version is flat across the top -- with a depression for the flash shoe and film counter. This model used a 25mm filter thread and the D39KA lens shade.
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