The Minolta XD-7 (sold as the XD-11 in North America and as the XD in Japan)[1] is a 35mm SLR film camera manufactured by Minolta from 1977 until 1984.
History
It was Minolta's first SLR camera to feature both shutter priority and aperture priority automatic exposure modes. The camera also offered fully metered manual exposure as well as depth of field preview and an eyepiece shutter. Also, included were fully mechanical "O" (1/100 sec) and bulb settings, which allowed it to operate without a battery. The XD-7 was the top-of-the-line Minolta camera when it was in production and retains a reputation for quality. It was Minolta's last metal-bodied SLR design before the company switched to plastic with the X-700.
There was also a less-expensive version of the XD-7 called the XD-5. Introduced in 1979, the XD-5 was mostly identical to the XD-7 but without some higher-end features like the eyepiece shutter or the display of the selected shutter speed in the viewfinder in manual exposure mode. A black variant with a viewfinder diopter instead of the eyepiece shutter called the XD-S was also offered in Japan.
Many professional photographers have used the XD-7. One of the best known is Harry Benson, who often acknowledged the XD-7 in the various photography books he published in the 1980s.[citation needed]
