Minolta Maxxum 9xi

A Canon EOS-1 and a Nikon F4 on a 1992 dealer counter both topped out at 1/8000 and synced flash at 1/250. The Maxxum 9xi sitting between them ran to 1/12000 and synced at 1/300, numbers no Canon or Nikon body of the day could match. Minolta got that top speed from carbon-reinforced shutter blades, and thirty-odd years later the shutter is still why people go looking for this camera.

Where it pays off is fast glass in hard light. Sunny 16 on ISO 100 film at noon lands right around the camera's 1/12000 limit at f/1.4, so the 9xi lets you shoot somewhere between f/1.4 and f/2 wide open in full sun, while a 1/8000 body runs out of speed a little sooner and starts asking for an ND filter. That works out to a bit over half a stop of extra headroom. Outdoor portrait shooters feel it. The sync gain is smaller than it looks on paper: 1/300 against 1/250 comes to about a quarter stop, a slim extra margin when you balance fill flash against daylight rather than anything decisive. In S and M the speeds climb from 30 seconds in half-stop steps, with bulb available in manual.

Minolta built the 9xi as the serious body at the top of the xi line, the third generation of its autofocus system. The 7xi underneath it got a pop-up flash and stopped at 1/8000; the 9xi gave up the flash and kept the faster shutter. It pulls film through at 4.5 frames per second with nothing bolted to the baseplate, no motor and no battery grip. Body weight is 740 g before lens and battery, and every function depends on a single 2CR5 lithium cell, so a spare belongs in the bag whenever you take it out.

Reviewers in the early nineties went after two things, and both complaints hold up. A flagship this expensive shipped with no flash of its own, so even a touch of fill means an external unit on the shoe. Then there were the Creative Expansion Cards. Minolta moved some functions, custom settings among them, out of the body and sold them separately on small cards that slot into the side of the camera. Used bodies often turn up without the cards, which leaves you with the hardware and only part of the feature set. Wireless off-camera flash also gives back the headline sync speed: it drops to 1/60, and to 1/30 in ratio mode.

Today's buyers tend to be Minolta A-mount shooters who already own the lenses and want the fastest shutter the system ever put on film. Others arrive by cross-shopping the Nikon F90X and the Canon EOS-1, then notice the Minolta often sells for less. It is a bulky, plastic-skinned early-90s body, and next to a Maxxum 9 it looks its age. Few bodies in its price class get anywhere near it on shutter speed, though.

The 14-segment honeycomb pattern meter is capable, but a backlit portrait or a sunlit white wall can still pull it off course. The body's own spot mode handles those scenes if you know where to point it. Or spot-read the shadows with Zone Light Meter, decide which zone they should land on, and either set that in M or dial the difference in as exposure compensation before you trip the shutter.