I Found a Camera

Not long ago my oldest son came to me and said that he would like to explore photography. So I decided to go about some thrift shops to see if I could find an older solid DSLR for him.

The whole family packed into the car and we drove all over the city going from pawn shop to pawn shop, thrift store to thrift store. And the majority of what I found was old 'entry' cameras. Canon Rebel and that sort of thing. Nothing wrong with that but it just wasn't what I was after.

Towards the end of the day we came up on a thrift store situated right next to a BBQ joint. It was the perfect combination.

I came in the door and started looking around the glass cases under the counter and saw an old film camera of some sort. So I asked if I could look at it.

As soon as I had it in my hands I knew that I had found something special. This wasn't a good camera for my son, but it would be a great camera for me. Like a sailor that finds an old boat, I had found a new friend.

My dad had a Canon AE-1 and I know that I took pictures with that a bit in highschool (though the memory is admittedly fuzzy). This camera reminded me a bit of that.

However, this was a Minolta x-700. I would later find out that in most ways it is superior to the Canon AE-1. The viewfinder is gorgeous and bright! And this camera does aperture priority whereas the AE-1 can only do time priority. For me that is a big deal because I prefer to shoot in aperture priority.

They told me that it was priced at $50 but today was half off. I adopted my new pal Rocky.

I've given Rocky a good cleaning and installed fresh batteries. He is dressed in a fine camera strap befitting of his high pedigree.

After that I went and bought some fujicolor 400 film from Wallace World. I'm looking forward to seeing how these pictures come out.

Rocky and I are off to have many fine adventures together.