A liability coming from age, it’s common for the Autocord’s leatherette to crack and peel away. Unadorned panels are covered in nicely textured leatherette, cut to fit every angle and curve. The tripod mount is a beautifully milled piece of aluminum, and the metal strap lugs are held solidly in place with shiny screws.The film advance lever is a cast piece of metal with a gentle curve and raised accents, ending in a finely detailed handle. Film spool knobs are nicely knurled and contrast well with the black body. This touch gives the camera a distinctive stateliness, and an impression of thoughtful design. In raised areas the black enamel has been carefully machined away, leaving wonderful contrasting lines to frame the camera’s edges and nameplate. Classy and timeless, it’s essentially a black, rectangular box with silver trim. So what’s it like to shoot this medium format antique today? After spending a few weekends with the Minolta Autocord, here are my impressions.Īesthetically the Autocord is a nice looking machine. As an added bonus, the Autocord was significantly less expensive than any TLR from the land of bratwurst and dachshunds. Amazing optics, exceptional build quality, and a number of small ergonomic and functional refinements signaled the arrival of a new choice in the TLR scene. This Twin Lens Reflex camera was known as the Autocord, and it was a better camera than any TLR made by the Germans. Minolta produced a camera in 1955 that, while not in the same technological class as Nikon’s first SLR, refined and perfected a different class of machine known as the TLR. It wasn’t until the 1950s, when Japanese camera makers began refining their optics and manufacturing processes, that their machines began to match and surpass those of their German rivals.Įveryone knows of the game-changer that Nikon produced in their Nikon F SLR, but a lesser-celebrated and equally worthy Japanese camera existed even before the F. For a long time, a Japanese camera is what a photographer bought if he couldn’t afford a German machine. In this nascent period of Japanese industry the Japanese makers lacked the technical excellence, and just as crucially, the reputation for excellence that surrounded the likes of Leica, Zeiss and Rollei. This reflected a truth Japanese cameras of the 1930s and ‘40s were in large part inferior to their German contemporaries.

In the early days of mass-produced cameras, when a photographer talked about “the best” he invariably talked about Germany.

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