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2026-11-11 Sony α700 Camera

Our Society had three items donated to us. There was a Sony α700 camera with a Minolta Maxxum AF 50mm f/1.7 autofocus lens mounted, the Minolta camera body the lens originally fit (a Maxxum 7000) and a Vivitar 730AFM flash. Our Society handles donations by holding an auction of sorts with EPHS members “bidding” on the items they are interested in. This way if you are the only one interested you are simply given the item. If there is more than one member interested, they are to “bid” by choosing a number between 1-1000. When the auction closes the items are given randomly chosen numbers between 0-1000 and the member who is closest to the item’s random number gets the item. 
    Somehow I had the luck to get two of the three items: the Sony α700 (with Minolta 50mm f/1.7 autofocus lens mounted) and the Vivitar 730AFM flash. Another member “won” the Maxxum body. That member told me he had really wanted the Minolta lens. It is a bit embarrassing winning as much as I did, but it didn’t stop me from taking it!
    The donator had mentioned the camera suffered from a broken battery door (it was taped shut), a problem with shutting down any time it felt like it and it didn’t really cooperate well with the Minolta lens. When Minolta went out of making cameras they sold the business to Sony, so for a little while early Sony cameras used the Minolta mount and the unique flash mount Minolta used for a hot-shoe connection.
There is a difference between a “mount” and how a lens operates. You can physically attach the lens, But the Minolta lenses used a physical coupling of the motor in the body through a rotating coupling to the focus in the lens. 
    The Sony lenses had small motors built into each lens. So to use the Minolta AF 50mm on the Sony camera—
  • the camera had to be set to the manual focus position
  • the lens had to be manually focused
  • the autofocus “Box” on the viewfinder’s screen had to indicate focus had been achieved
    The Vivitar flash foot fits on the Sony α700, but the flash automation differs from Minolta film cameras. Minolta autofocus film cameras used an off-the-film flash automation that depended on shutting down the flash when enough light had hit the film. This system does not work with a glass surface digital sensor. You can use the flash because it does cooperate with the autofocus system in low light (it provides a projected pattern the focus sensor in the camera uses) and you can manually adjust the camera to expose correctly for the flash output, but it isn’t a seamless process.
    

    Anyway it is cute to see the α700 and a α200 I already had were actually released pretty close together (within a year). The α700 is bigger and heavier then the α200, one has slightly more pixels in the sensor, but the sensor size is the same and both are quite capable cameras.  The α200 came with a 18-70 mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, so I could switch it to the α700 just to see if the camera was happy with a lens made for the contacts it has. The Maxxum AF 50mm f/1.7 has five electrical contacts. The α200 and α700 bodies have eight contacts, so their lens does too. 
    
    Once the α700 had the right lens it started to work fine. Except every once in a while it will completely botch the exposure (overexposure). The camera only shut down once on its own. To be truthful the body is so studded with controls it is hard to sort out you haven’t caused the problem.
    The battery door turned out to be just a little short on the catch part, so I took the catch out (one small screw) and modified it’s shoulders to allow the catch to protrude just a little more. The battery compartment door doesn’t actually hold the battery in, so all it has to do is not flap open and snap off.

Sony α700 Key Specs
  • Announcement Date: 2007-12-19
  • 12MP - APS-C CMOS Sensor
  • ISO 100 - 6400
  • Sony/Minolta Alpha Mount
  • Sensor-shift Image Stabilization
  • 3.00" Fixed Type Screen
  • Optical (pentaprism) viewfinder
  • 5.0 fps continuous shooting
  • No Video Mode
  • 768g. (1.7 lb.) 
  • 142 x 105 x 80 mm (5.6 x 4.1 x 3.15 inch)
  • Weather-sealed Body
  • Replaced Konica Minolta Maxxum 7

Sony α200 Key Specs

  • Announcement Date: 2008-07-17
  • 10MP - APS-C CCD Sensor
  • ISO 100 - 3200
  • Sony/Minolta Alpha Mount
  • Sensor-shift Image Stabilization
  • 2.70" Fixed Type Screen
  • Optical (pentamirror) viewfinder
  • 3.0 fps continuous shooting
  • No Video Mode
  • 572g. (1.26 lb.)
  • 131 x 99 x 71 mm (5.2 x 3.9 x 2.8 inch)

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