My wife was showing me the old souk on Rainbow Street in Jordan when I noticed an old man was selling vintage cameras. He had a bunch of Nikon, Canon, Minolta, and twin reflex cameras! Of course I jumped like a little school girl when I saw them and started checking them all out.
Out of all of the ones I saw which I thought was the cleanest was this Minolta XG-M. It was in really good condition, was metering properly, and had a big and bright viewfinder. The only issues were with the lens. There is a slight dent on the front of it but it’s barely noticeable, and the lens focusing gets tough to turn when you get to the infinity side. I think if I just spray some WD-40 into it and turn it a couple times it will get easier to turn.
The price he set was high but after some bargaining he let me have it for a good price.
So far I’m liking it. One of my favorite features is the ability to return the film advance lever and still be able to shoot. I wear glasses and on a lot of film cameras, including my FM2n, the film advance lever gets in the way and makes it a bit difficult to shoot properly, but thankful that is not an issue with this camera.
One thing I disliked at first was that the highest shutter speed on the camera is 1/1000. But then I realized I have to adjust the exposure compensation dial to remedy that issue. It’s especially helpful when shooting in daylight. Another dislike is the Auto mode “shutter lock” feature. If you have it in auto mode and it thinks that the photo will not have correct exposure, it locks the shutter button so you can’t take the picture. I found this really annoying after a while because it wouldn’t let me take photos! So now I just set the shutter speed manually every time. The shutter lock feature made the auto mode useless.
I just finished a roll of film on the camera and I’ll be developing it soon. Hopefully there are no light leaks or other issues with the camera and the photos will turn out great!
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
