Minolta
What comes to mind when you hear the name “Minolta?” Is it the Minolta camera? Perhaps – if you are a camera aficionado. The odds are good that you, like so many thousands of others, associate Minolta with copiers, fax machines and also laser printers. To this end it is not surprising to see the Minolta label on a plethora of office equipment around the globe. Yet what sets apart this company from so many others like it is the fact that this company has been on the cutting edge of camera design. While today a Minolta digital camera is considered to be a worthwhile investment, in days past the name “Minolta” was awe inspiring to the competition for the many innovations it brought to the stores.

The race for the best camera began in 1937 when Minolta produced the “Minolta flex” which was Japan’s first twin-lens reflex camera. In 1958 the company once again made history with the first single-lens reflex camera entitled “Minolta SR-2.” For a while it was silent but then in 1985 the company once again made history with the Minolta Maxxum 7000 which was the first auto focus design camera. When in 2003 Minolta merged with Konica, it was only a matter of time until the first Konica Minolta camera emerged on the market.

Yet in 2006 the company upset photography aficionados around the world when it announced that it would leave the digital photography marketplace. Suddenly the bottom dropped out of the market, and a Minolta instant camera became a cheap camera. Minolta also decided to put a sale sign on the many different Minolta camera parts and also Minolta digital camera accessories that were part and parcel of the many products it was offering on the photography market. If you are still hoping to find a quality digital camera, Minolta products will probably be hard to find. Additionally, if you own a Minolta, you may need to look on the big trading sites on the Internet to find parts and accessories. The former notwithstanding, it is important to remember that there are a number of generic parts and accessories that are also approved for use with a Minolta camera.