Minolta XG-M

Put it next to a Canon AE-1 Program, the camera every camera store of 1982 wanted to sell you instead, and the Minolta XG-M is the one that lets you take the camera off auto without arguing about it. The Canon was shutter-priority and program, a system that decided things for you. The XG-M is aperture-priority with a real, honest manual mode, and that single decision is why people who learned on it tend to keep it. It was the top of Minolta's consumer XG line, the body that bridged the gap before the all-electronic X-700 took over the family for the rest of the decade.

The viewfinder is the good news. It is bright for a budget SLR, with a horizontal split-image rangefinder ringed by a microprism collar, so focusing is fast in daylight and tolerable in dim rooms. Down the right edge runs a column of LEDs that light up the shutter speed the meter has chosen in aperture-priority, or blink at you in manual to nudge you toward correct exposure. The metering is center-weighted, read by a silicon photocell tucked behind the pentaprism. It is decent in even light, and the silicon cell reacts quickly, so it does not lag the way older sensors do; the real caution is the one every averaging meter shares, that it gets fooled by strong backlight, so give a scene a thought before you trust the reading. The shutter is a horizontal-travel cloth focal-plane unit, electronically timed, running from 2 seconds up to about 1/1000 with flash sync at 1/60. The cloth curtains are exactly why that sync is pinned at 1/60 and not faster.

Build is plasticky-over-metal, lighter than a Nikon FM, and it feels like what it is, a well-made consumer body rather than a tank. The motor drive coupling on the baseplate was a selling point in its day, and an MD-1 motor drive bolts on and rips through film fast for a camera at this price. Film loading is ordinary hinged-back stuff, no quick-load tricks. The grip is shallow by modern standards but the shutter release is feathery and the whole thing is easy to carry all day.

Here is the honest weakness, and it is the same one that haunts every electronic Minolta of this era. The shutter will not fire without battery power. None of it works dead. Two LR44 cells run the whole camera, and when they go, you have a paperweight, not a backup mechanical speed to limp home on. The other quiet problem is the foam light seals, which by now have turned to black goo on most surviving bodies and need replacing before you trust a roll. Neither is fatal, but both are worth knowing before you buy.

These trade for very little money today, which is exactly why they are a smart first SLR. You cross-shop it against the AE-1 Program and the Pentax ME Super, and the XG-M wins on having a clean manual mode and a finder that is pleasant to look through. When you do put it in aperture-priority and point it at something backlit, a window portrait, a face against a bright sky, do not trust the averaging meter to protect the shadows. Take an incident or spot reading off the Zone Light Meter app, place the shadow where you want it, and dial that in manually. The body gives you the manual control; the app tells you where to aim it.