Manual focus

I buy this body as a replacement for my second XM, which brakes down with a shutter error. It has automatic exposure and small digital numbers in the viewfinder and lots of neat, modern facilities, but not the charm and ruggedness of the XM, and it's dependent on a battery with only one shutter speed working when there's no power.

A true flagship body from Minolta built to the highest specs and easily able to compete with Canon's F-1 and Nikon's F2, which were the pro's cameras of choice in that period. But Minolta never broke through, and even though I bought two of them (the first was stolen), it wasn't enough to support the business.

My first ever SLR body, which I "inherited" from my dad... I simply took possesion of it when he and my mother divorced and he moved out. He's still alive and has never mentioned that he missed the camera. It was a very well built, fully mechanical and manual camera with a small light meter built in - but no automatic exposure of any kind.