Minolta Panoramic A-303si SLR – Why you don’t need to spend 4 Grand on an XPan – Seeing Panoramic Part II

I wrote a post sometime back about my experience with the Fuji TX-2 aka Hasselblad XPan II. A lovely camera which I sold for peanuts, it’s now risen in price so much that only those with deep pockets can afford to shoot this very niche and peculiar camera.

I concluded my article with the following:

I eventually sold it – do I regret selling it? Yes and no, No because I found the panoramic novelty wore of pretty quick and subsequently the camera was at home gathering dust for ages as I didn’t want to lug another camera around unless I was going abroad – but even then I ended up taking a regular MF camera as a back up/alternative addition to my G2.

I soon found myself wanting to try shooting Panoramic, being a fan of the Cinema I wanted to shoot in the format again. A Hasselblad or Fuji is now way beyond my budget and even if I did have cash to spare I wouldn’t want to blow it on what to all intents and purposes is a novelty.

The only other alternative was a 35mm camera with a P option, basically a Panoramic mask in the film mechanism and in the View Finder. Look around and you’ll see lots of compact cameras wit this option.

Browsing the World Weird Web you get opinion after opinion, most blow hards and half-wits say: “you’ll lose kwalaee innit, it’s better to cwop in post innit..” and other similar mindless and thought free bollocks. Pardon my French but such people spend more time making love to their cameras than using their brains. They forget the most basic of basic; that you need to Compose in the format, shooting with a normal aspect ratio means composing in that aspect ratio, it’s very difficult to compose in this aspect ratio using a full frame and then be confident that you’ll be able to crop afterwards – this thinking is just retarded.

These dim-wits (bring em on, I’d love to argue with them, so I hope they flock to the comment section to try and shoot me down in flames) neglect the fact that you need to see in this format to compose in it.

Anyway, enough ranting, and back to what I did.

I went on the lookout for an SLR with a Panoramic mode. Now, there are a few; Pentax and a very rare Canon, but the best of them is the Japanese market Minolta Alpha Sweet II (a version of the Dynax Maxxum 5 with P option) my theory is that with such a camera and an excellent sharp lens plus fine grained Film you’ll be able to shoot Panoramic on a shoe string.

The Minolta Alpha Sweet II is a superb camera in its Dynax 5 guise; it’s quick, excellent AF, metering is nailed, you can change ISO and do all sorts. My issue was that at the time I was a bit skint, having blown a few grand on a couple of vintage Mountain Bikes and a new Mac Studio (well, 2022 version so not really new). So a little research and I saw that Minolta had released some older SLR’s or rather one or two with the P option. They’re all quite rare and basic – much more basic than the Alpha Sweet II. luckily I found a Japanese Minolta a-303si on ebay with a Sigma Zoom Master 35-70mm f3.5 – f4.5 for £15. It arrived and it was in more or less perfect condition.

It’s not perfect, it’s pretty slow to AF compared to the aforementioned Alpha Sweet II (Dynax 5), the VF is also rather like one found on an APSC DSLR (ok, a bit larger)  – Pentamirror type and pretty much smaller and dimmer than what I like (smaller and dimmer than the Dynax 5) but big and bright enough –  it’s relatively well built, comfortable and has A M S and P modes.  It also has a dial on the side where you can switch from normal to Panoramic – which masks the VF to the P aspect ratio. One big flaw is that you cannot change ISO, so pretty useless for B&W. Though there is a Super version which has extra features such as ISO select.

So I bought a roll of Kodak Ektar, but then I thought sod it, I’m going to use a roll of Cinestill 800T instead. This roll has been lying around for about a year and we were on our way to Norwich as the Missus had an appointment, the weather was dull so ISO 800 seemed right.

I’ve since discovered that there is another higher end Semi Pro Minolta with P option – it’s the Japanese version of the Maxxum 800si called the alpha a-807si and it’s certainly one to look at for much more advanced and better quality  features and a large Pentaprism.
NB. I’ve bought one with a 24-50 f4 Minolta lens so will be reviewing this at some point. Bought from Shintarou Narimatsu of  classic.camera.japan on eBay for a bargain – sent in 3 days to the UK with no extra charges!

I also wanted to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that you can shoot good sharp clean and very good photos composing in Panoramic with a crap lens. I wish I had had a decent lens but beggars can’t be choosers.

I also wanted to show the mindless who believe in ‘you gotta cwop it in pwost.” that Half Frame cameras are en vogue, they’ve an even smaller image size, so why’re they worrying about any loss in quality because of a crop? I’ve taken acceptable sharp and good photos with a Half Frame Pen, so why worry about any loss of quality with this?

So off we went to Norwich and what you see here are most of the results. I did get some duds but that’s to be expected. Needless to say I was very pleased with the results. If I had had a good sharp lens and a fine grained Film, I’d have got as good results as any 35mm. But not bad for a £15 plastic fantastic with a throw away lens on 800 Speed Film..

I shot urban stuff, snapshots, generally at f8 – f11 zone focus, just playing with composition and experimenting, (so these aren’t in anyway what I’d call good – just snaps and imagine how they’d be with a good lens, fine film and some care, and nor did I use a warm up filter which I should’ve with the T film balance) and was confident enough to approach a few people for portraits, even PC Plod was in a good mood as there was some kind of Kurdistan Protest going on, where I asked a few people, plus the girl in the purple dress, I approached and asked if I could take a picture of her in her pretty purple dress. There was one British Army guy, probably a Merc who accused me of being a hack, I told him to go and do one.

I’m going to get myself a decent lens and an Alpha Sweet II, or most likely the cheaper and more advanced a-807si then enjoy the format as and when I feel like it. In fact as mentioned above after publishing this I’ve bought a minty a-807si with a Minolta 24-50 f4 (coming soon on 35mmc)

The standard XPan lens is 45mm equivalent to a 24mm lens on this. As you can see these are no way as near as wide as an XPan standard 45mm – a 24mm would do the trick.

Anyway here were are (plus one Full Frame shot for comparison). These are just snaps and won’t win any prizes for technical or creative flair, Lab Scans as I don’t know how to scan Negative Film properly.

The camera was much more fun to use than an Xpan, more versatile with a zoom, much cheaper, quicker and the metering is obviously better. Oh and you won’t cry if it fails or your drop it.

To conclude, you don’t have to spend 4 grand on an XPan, (or knock yourself out if you want to) and ignore twits on the internet (apart from me of course)

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