MINOLTA A-2

THE CAMERA:

The Minolta A-2 from 1957. It sports a Chiyoko Rokkor 45mm 1:2.8 lens with an Optiper MVL shutter. It has a coupled rangefinder with parallax correction. (the image moves across the viewfinder against set frame lines)

This was an impulse buy. I saw this and thought, wow that's different. I had been looking at Minolta's history and their rather unique designs for their 35mm cameras like the Minoltina S and the AL-E. This was the third major design change in their 35mm cameras after, first, the 35 series that started in 1947 and second, the Memo.

There was a Minolta A which was very similar, it too had the unique shutter speed dial implanted in the top plate but with a smaller set of windows.

Some of these images of my camera are featured on the "camera-wiki.org" page for the Minolta A-2 camera

FIXES:

It would not fire. A quick tap on the exposed shutter (in the film chamber) brought it to life. That was the only problem that needed to be addressed. There are no light seals to fix, it uses deep flanges, much like the German cameras of the time. Already very clean, a simple exterior cleaning s all that was needed.

MANUAL:

Here is an online owners manual

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