2026-06-07 Minolta 110 Zoom SLR

This Minolta 110 Zoom SLR came to me with a bunch of other cameras. Apparently I took images of it and made a folder to contain the images and a story, and then somehow I failed to ever write the story. I didn’t discover how senile I had become until just recently. So now I am going to write a story to fit the images.
    Kodak introduced 110 film cartridges in 1972. 

    The Minolta 110 Zoom was the first of two 110 Zoom Single-Lens-Reflex cameras Minolta made. It was the first SLR 110 camera in 1976, replaced by the Mark 2 version—that looked a lot more like a miniature 35mm SLR—in 1979. At the time the first version’s unusual wide flat design was judged slightly odd (although to be fair almost all the 110 cameras until the Pentax Auto 110 three years later were wide), so sales weren’t overwhelming. Despite that they are far from uncommon.

    The 25-50mm f/4.5 zoom lens went from normal to 2X telephoto. It had 10 elements in 10 groups. It focused down to a meter (3.3 feet), but could get down to 28 cm (about a foot) at 25 mm in its single Macro position. The macro reproduction ratio was 0.126X - 0.106X.
    You focused through the lens using a center micro prism spot. Comment has been made—since the viewing system uses mirrors instead of a solid glass prism and the lens is not that fast (at f/4.5)—zone focusing could be faster and more accurate. The use of a sideways optical path for the SLR viewing system also allowed them to design a relatively wide and flatter prism bump.
    The exposure system was different too. Instead of a through-the-lens meter system the 110 Zoom has a front mounted CdS meter turret. The film cartridge had a tab to tell the camera what the ASA of the film was. You would dial in the f/stop you wanted to use and the camera would choose the shutter speed. The shutter could set itself from 1000 sec to 10 seconds. If you were overexposing (needing a shutter speed higher than the 1000 sec the camera could do) a red arrow (pointing left, for the direction to rotate the turret to close the aperture) would show in the upper right of the viewfinder. If the camera was going to use a shutter speed (50 sec or less) too slow to handhold a second lower right yellow arrow (pointing right, again for turret direction to open the aperture) would light up.

    On the top deck, behind the turret, there was a manual plus or minus 2 EV slider so you could correct for back light and other situations.
    There are clever touches like the viewfinders top right arrow also functioning as a battery check. Speaking of the battery the battery isn’t needed for a mechanical 150 sec at the “X” flash sync setting on the dial to the left of the hotshoe. The Bulb setting doesn’t need a battery either, but of course the exposure metering system is dead.
    There is a shutter release lock slider next to the shutter button. There is a red button on the other side of the shutter release that is the battery check (when pressed the top red arrow in the viewfinder will light if there is enough power in the battery).
The 110 Zoom has a hot shoe, but no PC connection. Flash bulbs are never recommended.

    The bottom of the camera has the film advance lever. When the film is loaded it will take three strokes (approximately) to get to the first frame but after that one stroke is all it takes to advance to the next frame. At the end of the cartridge you advance two strokes until the advance lever locks. Paper will still be visible in the window at the back of the cartridge, but it is safe to remove the film and reload.

The camera has a compartment for two S-76 batteries on one end. On the opposite end there is a tripod socket.

    The film door latch is next to the viewfinder eye point. It is pressed towards the viewfinder to open the film chamber's door.
    The camera can use 40.5 filters, but they aren’t metered. 
    The camera came with a good rubber collapsable lens hood.