They scarfed down their British fare with reckless abandon, and remarked, how of their contemporaries coming up in the 90's, they were some of the few who could really see the "big picture."
Camera Models: Minolta Freedom Dual C (1991) and Minolta Freedom Zoom Explorer (1999)
Similarities: Both are Minolta made point and shoot models with multiple focal lengths that have the fairly rare ability to shoot at the 28mm focal length on the wide end of their focal length range.
Differences: The Freedom Dual C, an earlier model, is actually a dual lens camera rather than a zoom like the Freedom Zoom Explorer. It offers special buttons only to turn off flash or to use a self timer. The Explorer however has a burst mode, night portrait mode, red-eye reduction flash, and macro mode among its options.
Film Shared: Ilford Delta 400, fresh dated, developed in TFX-2.
As the 1990's progressed, point and shoot cameras continued to try to reach new and impractical levels of focal length, as the typical 35-70mm range began to expand ever upwards with each successive year. As the decade closed, and a consumer digital era crept imminently close, the longest of these super zooms stretched to a 200mm focal length!
Far fewer camera models in this age of length inadequacy crept inward, typically leaving 35mm (or more often 38mm) as the widest focal length offered, and in effect leaving snapshooters in close quarters with few comparative choices. Minolta was one of the few makers to crack the semi-wide ceiling on some of their models, with a couple of models reaching inward to be operable at a wide 28mm focal length.
