Meanwhile on the topic of disclosures, I also admit to a bit of a Minolta bias. Dante Stella, Mike Eckman, Casual Photophile, Tobias Key – praise the Autocord’s handling, design and build quality, reserving special plaudits for the Rokkor lens (which I’ll come to a bit later). While I may one day add a high end Rolleiflex to my collection, … the Autocord does everything the Rollei does, and does it for a fraction of the price.įull disclosure: I’ve only shot one roll of film with my Autocord so far, so I’m not qualified to write a proper review. And I don’t mind shooting without a meter – sometimes I use a phone app, sometimes I just guess.Īdvertisements: Popular Photography 1956 (left) and 1957 (right) showing both meterless and metered versions The Autocord and other TLRs It does not have a light meter, but I personally prefer the meterless Autocord variants (mainly for aesthetic reasons I’m shallow like that). My model is an Autocord I, manufactured in 1965. All variants share some common features including a superb taking lens – a Rokkor 75mm f/3.5 with four elements in three groups (Tessar-type). Other differences are relatively minor, like cosmetic changes to the nameplate or slightly different shutter speed sequences. Probably the most significant variation is that the L and CDS models have a light meter (selenium for the Ls, CdS for the CDSs). Some take 120 film only while others take both 120 and 220. Produced from 1955–66, the Autocord came in a number of variants.

The Minolta Autocord is a fully-mechanical twin-lens reflex camera which takes 6×6 photos on medium-format film. Chiyoda aimed for the fences with their new camera … and hit it out of the park.

Minolta autocord cds model iii