Minolta Maxxum 500si

The spot meter is the headline reason to pick a 500si over the cheaper body sitting next to it on the shelf. The 400si gives you the 8-segment honeycomb pattern and no spot mode. The 500si keeps that pattern and adds a 5.5 mm spot circle in the middle of the finder that reads from EV 4 to 20. Minolta sold it as an entry camera. Point the spot at a face against a bright window, though, and it stops behaving like one.

It dates to about 1995, a year Camera-wiki takes from the copyright line in the English manual. The names are where buyers get tripped up. The Maxxum 500si, the Maxxum 500si Super, the Dynax 500si Super in Europe and the Alpha 303si Super in Japan all share the same core body. Ritz Camera sold a date version as the Maxxum RZ 530si, and the Maxxum 550si added date imprinting plus a panorama mode, so those two are variants rather than straight rebadges. Check the badge before you bid. A plain Dynax 500si, without the Super, is a different and cheaper European camera, not this one.

The honeycomb meter covers EV 1 to 20 and handles ordinary daylight well. The more useful trick is film speed. You can set ISO by hand anywhere from 6 to 6400 in third stops, so a DX code never has the last word. Rate HP5 at 1600 for a dark gig and the camera goes along with it. One habit to learn: load a cassette with no DX code (bulk-loaded film, a hand-rolled cassette) and the body simply carries over whatever speed you used last. Check the ISO on the LCD after loading. It is easy to shoot half a roll of slow film at the previous roll's 800.

The shutter runs from 30 seconds to 1/2000, with bulb in manual, and that top speed is the real limit. ISO 400 film in full sun at f/5.6 already wants about 1/4000, and opening to f/4 doubles that. If you want a shallow look on Portra 400 at the beach, you load slower film or accept more depth of field than you planned. Flash syncs at 1/90, which is slow for daylight fill, and drops to 1/45 once wireless or remote flash control is switched on. Outdoor fill with this body is a compromise.

It weighs 400 g without batteries and runs on one 2CR5 lithium cell; date models also take a CR2025 for the imprint. Nothing works without power, so keep a spare 2CR5 in the bag, since corner shops stock them less often than they used to. The mount is Minolta A, which means the same lenses fit later Maxxum film bodies and Sony's A-mount digital cameras. Most buyers today come at it from that side: a cheap film body for lenses already on the shelf, or a first SLR with full PASM that costs very little.

Backlit and high-contrast scenes are where it pays to slow down. Take a reading with Zone Light Meter, decide which zone the shadows should land on, and set that aperture and speed in M instead of trusting the honeycomb average. Then put the 5.5 mm circle on your subject's face as a quick cross-check before you press the release.