{"id":15439,"date":"2019-08-30T05:04:48","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T09:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=15439"},"modified":"2019-08-29T14:06:03","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T18:06:03","slug":"a-camera-for-the-common-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/a-camera-for-the-common-man\/","title":{"rendered":"a camera for the common man"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_15440\" style=\"width: 194px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Minolta-LIFE-Nov.-11-1957.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15440\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15440\" src=\"http:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Minolta-LIFE-Nov.-11-1957-sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"184\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15440\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Minolta A in 1957 Ad<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Toronto<\/strong>. I first heard American composer Aaron Copland&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2018\/07\/19\/629875534\/on-fanfare-for-the-common-man-an-anthem-for-the-american-century\"><em>fanfare for the common man<\/em><\/a>&#8221; back in late 1957 when I picked up a Westminster LP titled &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebay.com\/itm\/Copland-Howard-Mitchell-Appalachian-Spring-Westminster-Hi-Fi-XWN-18284-lp-1956-\/152250240710\">Copland<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>And like Copland&#8217;s well covered composition, the little Minolta was indeed made for the common man. In 1957, I had its slightly pricier brother, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fstopcameras.com\/rangefinders\/minolta-super-a-35mm-rangefinder-film-camera-with-super-rokkor-50mm-f18-fast-prime-lens-with-lens-cap-pristine-and-fully-functional\">Minolta Super A<\/a> which looked much the same except for the faster f\/1.8 Rokkor 50mm lens.<\/p>\n<p>Minolta struggled for a foothold in North America, competing against the German marques, Japanese makers, and local (American) cameras with ads like this one in LIFE magazine&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.ca\/books?id=tVYEAAAAMBAJ&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">November 11, 1957<\/a> issue. \u00a0A big thanks to George Dunbar for sharing this find with me and bringing back the pleasure the little camera gave me as I worked diligently to learn photography.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto. I first heard American composer Aaron Copland&#8217;s &#8220;fanfare for the common man&#8221; back in late 1957 when I picked up a Westminster LP titled &#8220;Copland&#8220;. And like Copland&#8217;s well covered composition, the little Minolta was indeed made for the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/a-camera-for-the-common-man\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[973,398,425,308],"class_list":["post-15439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camera","tag-advertisement","tag-camera","tag-life","tag-minolta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15439"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15446,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15439\/revisions\/15446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}