I love that Minolta! It was my first serious camera as well. I still have it, too.
I'm trying to identify the places pictured in your post.My first camera was a second hand Pentacon FM which was the renamed and slightly updated Contax S. I got mine with the much maligned 3-element Meritar in 1967 for £19 19s 6d (about £350 in modern money). The "S" was the first camera with a built in pentaprism and despite being designed in the 1930s looked quite modern in the 1960s. It saw me through the first 2 years of my photography which was pretty good given that it was in no way a well made camera. Here are some of those early shots and please remember that I was all of 16 when I took them...
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After more than 50 years your guess is probably much better than mine! However: the first shot is somewhere in the Chiswick area; the second shot is in Kent and the third shot is indeed Israel but I recall it as being further north and closer to the Dead Sea (possibly in the area around Metzoke Dragot).I'm trying to identify the places pictured in your post.
#1 River Thames with a railway bridge in the distance, is that Kew railway bridge?
#3 Israel archaeological site, perhaps Masada?
^ I should have been in Eilat right now for the spring bird migration, now trying to get refunds from airline and hotel, maybe next year.....
My own first was very similar, except that it took 620 film and I bought it myself when I was 11 after saving up for months. I loved that camera but it was a very bad choice because I couldn't afford to buy film very often. But I learned a lot from it because of this, and studied every single photography book in my local library, so that every shot counted. My next camera was only slightly better, an Edixaflex bought for £44.6.11 (9 weeks wages) when I started work. Waist level finder, didn't even have click stops, a nightmare to use in portrait mode in sunlight, but that started me off in pro photography.A Kodak folding camera that took 120 film, probably a Kodak 66. My old man gave it to me when I was about 9 or 10, so that was in the very early 1960s. Completely manual, right down to the shutter cocking lever, and I hadn't a clue how to use it. The owner of the local camera shop took pity on me and explained the basics of what we call the exposure triangle, Sunny 16 (maybe Sunny 11 in the UK?) and how to focus. The camera took good photographs and I started developing my own films shortly after that, but never got into printing because I didn't have access to an enlarger. My first SLR was a Zenith, and my first good SLR was a Nikon F2. Still the best camera I've ever used!
I've still got to have a battle with Eurotunnel over our June crossing with our motorhome, should be fun.......We should be halfway to Spain on a ship , 2 weeks driving up through France , all cancelled , hotel refunds were OK but Brittany Ferries have only issued travel vouchers
Don't visit the Film & Conventional section of the forum then, whatever you do, or you'll end up like the rest of us in there!This is giving me GAS for old cameras....