5 Frames with the Minolta X-370 in Las Vegas

After reading and following the site for years, I’ve finally gotten around to writing my first “5 Frames with…” on my daily SLR camera, the Minolta X-370. It’s incredibly lightweight and has aperture priority, so when going on a bit of an escapade to Las Vegas for the summer, not much gets in the way of taking some nice hungover shots with this thing. So with the X-370 in hand, a roll of CineStill 400D, and down $200 from a night of blackjack, here are 5 frames that I’d love to share with all of you.

Let’s start with probably my favorite photo from this walk around the shops. We just came out of the hotel at the Flamingo, stumbling around from the midday lighting. The light was nice and sharp, but I was surprised at how well this frame came out. I thought that the shadow detail was going to be lost, but everything about this image I just adore, from the two taking a selfie together to the bold colors coming off of the CineStill.

On the way to lunch, I snapped this scene of the family outside of this British-themed restaurant. They were deep in conversation, but I bet the fish and chips were good.

I wasn’t going for anything particular with this one in terms of creativity, but more so just documenting the scene around the LINQ shops here. I do love the layers of this one, and the CineStill 400D held up in this bright and dark scene.

If any of you are familiar with the popular horror stories about liminal spaces and The Backrooms, this shot of the Flamingo stood out to me like that. The almost infinite looking hallway with the trippy colors. The walls were actually completely red, but the lighting and the way CineStill rendered this scene looks fantastic.

The last ones here are quick portraits of my friends Sage and John. I just wanted to get them in front of our room number and make sure I got their soured expressions from the money we lost the night prior. After getting back to the room, we stocked up on cash for the day and hit the tables once more to a better outcome than the night prior.

All in all, I’d highly recommend the Minolta X-370 as a good carry-around SLR camera. There are, of course, more premium options to upgrade to in the future, and there are a lot of great MD and MC lenses for this mount. The stock 50mm F1.7 I used for these images created pretty standard looking frames, so I’ll probably be looking at a 40mm or something wider in the future for travel.

I got lucky with the price on this one, $50 during a yard sale, and was lucky enough to see that it was well maintained and with all of the electronics still working flawlessly, as that’s a common problem with these cameras that need a battery to function.

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