| Author:
Aleem Anwer, advanced Amateur | Date: Fri, Dec 15, '06 at 10:09 CET |
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| Pro | Took great pictures, controls are fine and ergonomically placed at convenient spots. Performed far better than my Yashica 109S and Canon F100. Even have had an Chinon Genesis III, it never came close to 5 Xi in performance. |
| Contra | Poor repairs backup support. Non availability of parts and existance of qualified repair men all over the world. |
| Thoughts | I've owned this camera since 1993. It worked fine took some great pictures. One day it just burnt out and when it came to repairs the experience was disgusting - could not find any repair facility in Pakistan. The part required was a PCB called PWB-1A. Minolta Corp said in 1995 they did not produce this camera anymore. Reliability! aaah sorry. Durability a big SORRY. Thank Goodness Minolta are out of business. My advice never buy anything that bears the name of Minolta. 610 US dollars durability only two years and no repairs backup. |
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| Author:
s. shankar | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | Plenty of features for the money. |
| Contra | Tends to behave like an unsophisticated compact when using flash: most of the close flash pics turned out fuzzy, an absolute contrast indeed to my miniscule Olympus mju 35-105 compact, which has auto variable flash. |
| Thoughts | Overall, I found the camera quite unreliable. 'Help' showed up in the LCD display once, without warning: fortunately we were in a park, in our own town, so not much damage done: thank goodness we were not in a strange exotic land! A local repair facility 'fixed' it but the same problem occured in the middle of the very next roll. This time, I took it to the proper Minolta repair facility, who changed what they called the 'aperture control base plate'. This was two years ago, been OK since.
However, the camera locks all of a sudden, and displays 'manual focus'. One needs to manipulate the tip of the lens, try turning it a few times, when it suddenly springs to life. This happens too often for comfort. Nonetheless, I risked taking it on a trip to Muscat. OK, only once the 'manual focus' thing refused to go off, and the camera simply wouldn't budge. I removed the lens, then remounted it, then things were fine again.
Anyone else with this problem? |
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| Author:
Francisco Salazar | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | I had this camera since 1993, It's been a very reliable camera, I got some accesories like cards and Zoom lens and I had been able to get great pictures. |
| Contra | Mybe only the flash schyncronization is anoying, but besides that, everything else works great |
| Thoughts | For those looking for cards, here is a place where to get them:
http://www.central-camera.com/minolta/maxxum_creative_cards.htm |
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| Author:
Ivan Babovic | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | Great camera |
| Contra | N/A |
| Thoughts | I've had this camera for about6 years now. Never failed me once. Pictures are great, the fully automatic ones as well as the manually set. Good, tough body (it fell on the ground once, no internal damage, just a little crack on the side of the casing), works well with my Tamron 28-80 and Sigma 100-300 lenses. Took about 1500 shots so far. I just cannot find the additional cards anywhere (I even contacted Minolta directly). Anybody - any ideas? |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | - |
| Contra | - |
| Thoughts | Sliders are bad compared to wheels of 600si. Eye-control is really
disturbing feature, and could not be switched-off. Built-in flash
is analogue of 800si, with zooming head. The mount is metal, as is internal
chassis. Contrary to some reviews, 5xi has an RC jack and wireless TTL-control.
I like the camera. |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | - |
| Contra | - |
| Thoughts | The first and only 35mm SLR camera I've ever owned and it's performed its job well. Sure it's a little heavy but the functions, lens (35-80) and built-in flash are all superb. Great for the price as well! I paid Aust$679 duty free in 1993 |
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