Minolta Maxxum 9 Retrospective: A Great Camera That Arrived Too Late

When I was working in the photo industry in the late 90s and early 00s, Nikon was king. Canon was already a close second or even considered the leading brand, depending on which photographer one spoke with. Both companies offered a robust selection of lenses, advanced camera bodies, and excellent autofocus systems. And then there were the outlier brands, like Minolta, Olympus, and Pentax, all who made some wonderful cameras, but were not nearly as popular as tools for professionals. Minolta was, perhaps, one of the most adventurous camera makers.

These companies released some innovative cameras and were often willing to take more risks and try novel approaches to camera and lens design by incorporating experimental features or just by going against the grain of what was the current norm. Minolta's risks sometimes paid off in a big way, as when they released the world’s first viable autofocus SLR, the Maxxum 7000, in the mid-1980s. Unfortunately, not all of their gambles paid off, and some of their more bizarre designs in the 1990s turned off many advanced amateurs and pros from the system.

At the time, I was a college student working at a camera store to help pay my way through school. I was a diehard Canon guy. I found most of Minolta’s cameras to be bizarre-looking and downright odd in their design and function. The experimental nature of Minolta bodies culminated in the extremely strange shape and interface of the Maxxum 9xi, which was a bold move in many ways by the company, but ultimately failed. The 9xi had some innovative features like a superimposed display in the viewfinder, as well as removable “Creative Cards,” which could add a variety of custom features to the camera, depending on the card that was used. The 9xi also lacked traditional dials and opted for a more futuristic button interface. All of these ideas had potential, but their execution was such that it did nothing to help Minolta gain professional users and instead soured some towards the brand. For example, the superimposed display resulted in a rather dark viewfinder, which detracted quite a bit from the supposed professional status of the camera.

Minolta, however, learned many lessons from the bulbous and perhaps even ugly 9xi and implemented a completely new approach in what would be their last professional SLR camera, the Maxxum 9 (Dynax 9 in Europe and Alpha 9 in Japan). The 9 abandoned all of the molded futuristic plastic and hidden buttons in exchange for a simple, classic design, which had everything a professional could ask for and then some, in a body that looked and felt like a pro camera, right down to its immense heft and excellent ergonomics. I can remember the first time I saw a Maxxum 9. I was enamored with it. It didn’t look like any of the Minoltas I was used to seeing. The aesthetics as well as the features intrigued me. Even as a know-it-all college kid who scoffed at most cameras that weren’t made by Canon at the time, I knew it was something special.

For one thing, the 9 sports what is still the fastest mechanical shutter in a 35mm camera at 1/12,000 of a second, and has an equally impressive 1/300 second flash sync speed. It even has HSS (up to 1/8,000 second) when using certain Minolta flashes. The 9 has extra large and beefy control dials, making it a snap to use with gloves on, and the design is so perfectly straightforward that it is a real treat to make pictures with, as well as one of the most intuitive 35mm cameras I have used. The autofocus is quick and accurate for a camera of this era, and the 9 has many custom functions which were thoughtfully included by Minolta without needing any expansion cards, including the ability to rewind a roll midway through and then reload it later on and continue shooting right where you left off. One of the best parts about the camera is the bright, 100% viewfinder coverage, which makes composition extremely easy and fun. And, as it is a Minolta, the camera includes some quirky features such as a built-in flash, smartly housed in a weather-sealed compartment that lifts manually instead of via electronics, and their “Eye Start” system, which started the autofocus the moment one held the camera up to their eye. This was accomplished via sensors in the grip and under the viewfinder.

Unfortunately for Minolta, the Maxxum 9, although not little by any means, was too late, especially as a viable competition with the likes of Nikon and Canon. As a feature-packed workhorse, the 9 could hold its own against the other flagship models of the time, but it would ultimately be Minolta’s last professional SLR camera for a variety of reasons.

One reason why the Maxxum 9 couldn’t save Minolta is that they just didn’t have the lens selection offered by Canon and Nikon. Among the lenses they did make, some offered features like power zoom, which was ahead of its time, but terribly impractical for still shooting. There were also compatibility issues with some of the newer lenses that forced owners of the Maxxum 9 to have a circuit board upgraded in order to use them. Another, albeit less important issue, was that Minolta MD mount lenses were not compatible with their autofocus bodies. This meant that their large array of exceptional manual focus lenses could not be used on the Maxxum cameras.

The aforementioned previous flagship model, the Maxxum 9xi, did little to please Minolta’s existing advanced amateur and professional shooters, as many were upset with the added cost of expansion cards as well as the clunky user interface and poor viewfinder brightness of the camera. Disgruntled users had many superb cameras to choose from offered by other brands. Additionally, Minolta’s lineup was never as robust as the offerings from Nikon and Canon, who offered a large variety of bodies ranging from amateur to professional and lots of options in between. The events that led to the end of Maxxum cameras are a more complex tapestry, of course, but that is not the focus of this essay.

Fast-forward over twenty years, and the Maxxum 9 has become an iconic camera, in part due to a rare titanium version, the 9 Ti, which still fetches quite a sum on the used market. Since I was unable to afford a 9 back in the early 2000s, I picked one up on eBay recently (not a Ti version) in order to appease my nostalgia and continue fueling my growing interest in shooting with film. Over 20 years later, the 9 still holds its own. As I described earlier, the beautiful, bright viewfinder, heavy-duty construction, intuitive layout, and overall speed make the camera one of the most fun I’ve ever used. Outside of the leatherette grip, which seems to fall apart on all of these cameras, the construction is quite excellent and rigid.

But using the 9 in 2022 is bittersweet. One can almost feel the passion Minolta poured into developing what would become their last professional SLR. The company threw all the stops at their effort, and it seems like Minolta knew the Maxxum 9 would be a make or break camera for the company. Sadly, even the stunning Maxxum 9, which received heavy praise at the time of its release, couldn't save Minolta from what was to come.

Even though the Maxxum 9 was indeed the end of an era, there is certainly much more to the story of Minolta as a camera and lens designer. The revolutionary A mount lenses pioneered by Minolta all those years ago, as well as their camera design philosophy and aesthetics, took on a new life through Sony, who acquired the company in the early 2000s. I suppose that depending on how one looks at it, the story of the Maxxum 9 and Minolta as a powerhouse camera manufacturer has a happy ending after all, through the innovative work Sony continues to do to this day.