Minolta Maxxum 5000i

I bought the Maxxum 5000i at a flea market last summer without knowing much about it.  I just figured it was probably worth the $15 that the dealer was asking. The Maxxum 5000i by default has two exposure modes: program and manual. If you want more you have to buy an expansion card that adds aperture and shutter priority.  The 5000i probably was the first camera to do this.  And it might have been the last for all I know.  Although I can see how requiring the purchase of a card to add features to a camera might have once seemed like a good idea.  So far I haven't felt motivated to find an expansion card for this camera.  And I would guess that if I had been in the market for a camera at the time I would have been more likely to buy a camera that came with the features I wanted instead of having to mess with additional cards. 

You may have noticed the built-in flash. I'm not sure if this is the first time that an SLR had a built-in flash, however I would guess it was one of the earliest.  The flash would fire when needed while in program mode.  It also was possible to turn the flash off.  I didn't take any flash pictures with this camera so I don't know how well it works.

The 5000i came with a f/4-5.6 35-80mm zoom lens.  From my reading it appears that this isn't one of Minolta's highly regarded lenses.  Still in the one roll of film that I shot I found it to be decent enough.  The 5000i was the mid-level camera in the series that followed the original famous Maxxum AF cameras.  The auto focus has a new feature called predictive auto focus which can help with focus on moving subjects.  I haven't shot any moving subjects with this camera so I don't know how well it works.  You also could get continuous auto focus with an expansion card.

Since it has been almost a year since I took the photos here I don't remember a lot about what my experience of using the 5000i was.  Obviously I wasn't so impressed that it became a camera that I use regularly.  Still when I was recently looking at the these images I was thinking that it certainly is a good camera.  Probably one that I wouldn't feel bad about using if my options were more limited.  And I do have to admit that it makes me think that maybe if I don't have time for this camera than maybe I have too many cameras. 

I believe the images here are on Kentmere 400 developed in Xtol.