Minolta Freedom III

The year is 1986. The light blinds you, as you walk out of the hottest new movie this year: Top Gun. As your eyes adjust, you decide to walk over to the local Sears, conveniently located in the same parking lot as the theater. As you wonder aimlessly up and down the aisles, you come upon the camera selection. As you peruse the options, you remember what you heard on the news. Something about a Comet that is supposedly coming close enough to earth that you can see it with the naked eye. “That sounds tubular” you think to yourself “I should pick up a camera to capture that“. That’s when you stumble upon the Minolta Freedom III. The sleek design is the first thing that catches your eyes. “Where’s the lens?“ you think to yourself, as you slowly pick up the floor model. Running your fingers across the surface, you see a spot for your fingers to catch. As you start to pull back, you reveal the red hidden lens, along with the yellow tinted viewfinder. “You sneaky minx“ you think to yourself, as you start to get attracted to the camera????

Sorry gang, lost the plot there for a moment. I also took some creative liberties with the dates that a few of the aforementioned events may have happened.

Today we are taking a look at the Minolta Freedom III AF from Minolta. I was at the Jersey Shore recently, for my yearly family trip, and decided to check out one of the local thrift stores. The smell of mildew was quite strong as I entered the store, but that did not dissuade me as all great thrift stores have a unique smell to them. They had a wide assortment bits and baubles, but as usual, my eyes were drawn to a singular item. A worn leather bag, housing what looks to be a camera. As I picked it up, I said to myself “You sneaky minx“ “I wonder if this thing still works?“. As I contemplated the decision, the store owner brought to my attention that this camera was only $12. My first thought was “Why would you price anything not in an increment of 5?“, but my second thought was “Its so cheap, not buying it would be losing money!“. So here we are, back with a new edition of Thrift Shop Cameras.

I went to my local CVS and bought a new roll of Fujifilm 400, and loaded this bad boy up. The film wound with no issues, which was a relief to me. I decided to wait quite a while before breaking out this camera, as the time never felt right. It wasn’t until I had a cabin weekend planned with my Girlfriend, that I decided to bust it out.

Below are a few photos that I took from said trip, It was unfortunate though, as halfway through the roll of film, the camera decided to give out and just stop working. I tried everything, new batteries, rewinding the film. I even tried giving it a good smack, as you sometimes need to do for old electronics. Kids of today, be thankful you never had to hurt your hands making a television less fuzzy.

I ended up going to my local camera store, to have them save the roll of film for me, but getting half a roll of film developed for the same price feels bad. I guess I cant be too upset at a 40 year old camera. She was kind enough to give me a few great photos before she passed.

As for the camera itself, I am in love with the film grain, everything looks so vivid in my opinion. The Minolta Freedom III has a feature that I was really looking forward to using, but did not have the chance to, called Focus Lock. Where if you held down the shutter button only half way, you would lock the focus, then you could reframe the picture however you wanted. But alas, such is life. If I ever get the chance to pick up another Minolta Freedom III, you bet I’m doing it.

Well that does it for me this time, I’ve got a few more cameras that I’m writing articles for, so don’t go too far.

See you next time.