Minolta Freedom Zoom 130 (c. 2002)
The Minolta Freedom Zoom 130 is a 35mm point-and-shoot compact from the early 2000s. It belongs to Minolta's Freedom series and was sold in some markets as the Riva Zoom 130. The body is plastic and the camera is fully automatic. The lens is a 37.5-130mm zoom, a useful range for a compact of its era, running from moderate wide-angle to a solid telephoto. Maximum aperture at the long end is f/5.4, which is typical for this class. A Date variant (and a QD variant) added date imprinting onto the film.
Operation is simple. Full auto exposure, autofocus and a built-in flash handle the essentials, and the multi-beam autofocus system uses four infrared beams to lock focus. Several program shooting modes are available, including a night-portrait mode and red-eye reduction. There is also a self-timer and a silent rewind function. The camera is small and light, roughly 11.2 × 6 × 4.4 cm and 210 grams, with the wrist strap attachment on the side.
Documentation on this model is thin. No original retail price, shutter speed range, flash range or battery type has surfaced in the sources we've found, and production dates are only loosely pinned to around 2002. What survives is mostly reseller inventory. Used prices in the record run from about $12 for a Date variant with a broken door latch, a commonly cited failure point, to $100 for a refurbished unit and $150 for a clean example on Kijiji. The one period description found, from a listing, calls it suitable for "studio use as well as professional digital imaging applications," which reads more like marketing copy than a serious claim. If you own one and have the manual or spec sticker, the Archive would welcome the details.
Note: one source lists the lens as 38-130mm rather than 37.5-130mm. The 37.5mm figure comes from the more detailed spec record and is used here.
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