The secret meaning behind the name Minolta (and how the camera brand evolved before disappearing forever)

Minolta is a storied name in photography, dating back to 1928 when Kazuo Tashima (1899-1985) started Nichidoku Shashinki Shōten ("Japan-German Camera Company") and released the Nifcarette, a folding roll-film camera in a 4x6.5 cm format, with a German-made lens and shutter.

The firm became a leading camera maker and in 1931 adopted the Minolta brand, an acronym for “Mechanism, INstruments, Optics and Lenses by TAshima.”

Over the years Minolta made many cameras, some quite unique, like the Minolta Vest of 1933, with a collapsible Bakelite bellows, and the Leica CL of 1973 (made in cooperation with Leica). But what interests us here is the development of its early SR series of SLRs.

My first real job was to manage the camera department of a now long-gone Canadian department store in Whitehorse, Yukon. Although we sold many brands, the main camera line was Minolta – and I sold hundreds of them in my brief, two-year tenure there. They were all reliable, well-made machines with excellent glass.

The series began with the SR-2 in 1958, featuring an instant-return mirror, 1/1000-second top shutter speed and semi-automatic aperture operation via Auto Rokkor lenses. The SR-2 pioneered the now-standard, non-rotating shutter speed dial, although without the click-stops of more modern cameras.

The Auto-Rokkor lenses could focus at full aperture but, when the shutter button was pressed, a pin in the camera body released a spring-loaded diaphragm in the lens, instantly moving it to the shooting aperture. After the exposure was made, the spring was reset by the photographer by moving a lever on the lens before the next exposure.

This may seem primitive by modern standards, but at the time it was a big advance over earlier preset or even fully manual diaphragms. Curiously, such semi-automatic diaphragms were sold as “Automatic”.

So when the next generation of auto-diaphragms evolved, which closed to shooting aperture for the moment of exposure and then automatically reopened for best viewing and focusing, they were branded as “Fully Automatic”.

The next year, the SR-1 followed. It was a simplified model, with speeds to 1/500, and came with a somewhat slower 55mm f/2 lens, rather than the 55mm f/1.8 standard optic of the SR-2. In 1960, the SR-3 added a split-image focusing aid and a bracket to mount an external light meter.

In 1962 Minolta led the way, once more, with the SR-7, the first camera to have a mirror lock-up – enabling the use of deep-seated wide-angle lenses. It was also the first camera to have a built-in CdS light meter. This much more sensitive meter was externally mounted and powered by a PX-625 battery.

In 1966, Minolta followed the SR line with its SR-T series of SLRs, which was a huge success.

Built on the reliable mechanics of the SR series, they featured TTL (through the lens) metering with a coupled match-needle meter visible through a bright pentaprism viewfinder. With the first model of the series, the SR-T 101, the SR lens bayonet was modified for MC lenses – which transmit the aperture value mechanically to the camera meter's match-needle.

The SR series' last hurrah was the Minolta SR-M, which was the first SLR with built-in electric sequential motor drive and auto film rewind. It was a modified Minolta SRT 101, with a permanent bottom-mounted motor drive (using eight AA batteries) with a detachable hand grip, and could shoot a steady three frames per second. Curiously, it had no light meter.

Throughout both the SR and SRT series, the lens mount remained essentially the same. As improvements were made from the Auto Rokkor (1958-1966) for automatic indexing, to the MC Rokkor (1966-1976) with meter coupling, and finally MD Rokkor (1977 onward) for advanced exposure modes, backward compatibility was maintained.

Older lenses could be used on newer cameras, even if they lacked the newest feature. Focal lengths ranged from 7.5mm fisheye to 1600mm telephoto, again all maintaining this backward compatibility.

Eventually Minolta would merge with Konica, creating Konica-Minolta in 2003. Only two SLRs would be sold under the combined brand – the Maxxum 7D (the Maxxum 7000 in the USA, Dynax 7D in Europe) and 5D (Maxxum 5D in North America, Dynax 5D in Europe and Hong Kong, and Alpha-5 Digital in Japan) – before leaving the camera business altogether, in 2006.

The camera division and its patents were sold to Sony, but Konica-Minolta remains in business, making photocopiers, commercial-quality printers, and designing and manufacturing both lens assemblies and complete lenses for other camera manufacturers.

Find out more about photography's past in David Young's book, A Brief History of Photography.

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