Minolta CLE
Minolta · Leica M mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1980
Also known as: Minolta CLE · ミノルタCLE · Minolta CLE gold
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minolta CLE | Leica M | 1980–1985 | — | About 35,000 over the whole run, including the gold cameras — the only figure in circulation, and no source traces it to Minolta¹ |
| Minolta CLE gold | Leica M | 1981–1981 | — | 300, Japanese market — Wikipedia carries the figure with a verification warning, but camera-wiki gives the same number and cites CameraQuest for it² |
- About 35,000 is repeated by PHSNE, the Vintage Technology Archive and the writing that follows them. No source attributes it to Minolta, and no serial survey supports it. It should be read as the trade's estimate.
- English Wikipedia states 300 gold cameras for the Japanese market and flags the claim as needing better verification. camera-wiki gives the same 300 and attributes it to CameraQuest, so there are two accounts rather than one — but they may share an origin, and neither is Minolta.
- camera-wiki gives the range as 1s to 1/1000 with X sync at 1/60, which is the only source consulted that publishes the slow end. What none of them says is whether any speed is mechanical and survives a dead battery — on a camera this dependent on its electronics that is the question an owner most wants answered, and the manual would settle it.
- The effective rangefinder base length is 29mm (PHSNE). That is shorter than any Leica M, and it is the honest limit on what the camera can focus accurately — Casual Photophile, which prefers the CLE to every M, still concedes the focus is "not as easy".
How to tell them apart
- Framelines for 28, 40 and 90mm, brought up automatically by the lens — no manual selector, and no 35 or 50 frame at all
- LED shutter speeds down the left of the finder, not a needle
- Aperture-priority automation: the shutter speed is chosen by the camera and shown, never set for it
- 32mm deep, which is thinner than any Leica M
- Black finish only — the gold edition is the single exception, and it was Japan-only
- ASA 25 to 1600 on the film-speed dial
Minolta CLE:
- MINOLTA CLE on the front of the top plate; no Leitz mark anywhere on the camera
- Hot shoe with the extra contacts the CLE flashes need — the CL has none
- A film window in the back door, which the CL does not have
Minolta CLE gold:
- Gold top plate with black engravings; gold bottom plate, strap lugs, hot shoe and lens-release button
- Gold metal parts on the advance lever and shutter release; gold numerals on the speed disc and lens rings
- Sold as a set with a standard lens whose bayonet is gold-plated, in a leather case marked CLE GOLD LIMITED
Serial-range notes
- no published table
- Minolta has never published a serial table for the CLE, and no collector survey of one exists. Bodies are dated by the features that changed rather than by number, and there is no key that turns a CLE serial into a year.
Specifications
- Format
- 24×36mm on 35mm film
- Shutter
- electronically timed focal plane, cloth curtains, horizontally running · 1s – 1/1000, X sync 1/60; whether any speed runs without batteries is not established here³
- Meter
- Through-the-lens silicon photodiode, centre-weighted, reading off the film. The cell keeps reading during the exposure and ends it when enough light has arrived, rather than setting a time in advance — the same measurement then serves the flash, which is what made TTL flash possible in a rangefinder at all. In manual mode the meter switches off entirely.
- Weight
- 380 g
- Dimensions
- 124.5 × 77.5 × 32 mm
- Country
- Japan
Figures we worked out rather than found: That Minolta built the CLE alone. The 1972 Leitz-Minolta agreement produced the CL, which both companies sold under their own names. Nothing on the CLE carries a Leitz mark, Leitz sold no version of it, and no source read for this page describes Leitz involvement. The inference drawn here is that the CLE is Minolta's own camera built on an agreement it had already signed, rather than a second joint product — which is why there is no Leica CLE.
Where sources disagree
- First
- 1980 (English Wikipedia; PHSNE; Casual Photophile)
- 1981 (camera-wiki, citing Francesch's Histoire de l'appareil photographique Minolta 1929–1985 for the year AND the month)
- 1980 or 1981 (Vintage Technology Archive, which prints the uncertainty rather than choosing)
Better supported: Unresolved
This looked settled at 1980 until camera-wiki was read, and it is the one source here that cites a printed book rather than another website — Francesch, for the year and the month. A book with a page reference outweighs three sites agreeing with each other, so the entry stops asserting 1980. What would settle it is Minolta's own announcement.
What reviewers say
- James Tocchio (Casual Photophile) (blog) — Prefers it to any Leica M — "does more, feels better, travels lighter, and costs less" — and calls the metering and automation "unfailingly perfect". The criticisms survive the enthusiasm: a shorter base length makes focus "not as easy", there are no 35 or 50 framelines, ageing cameras show jumping LEDs, and the meter switches off in manual.
- Photographic Historical Society of New England (blog) — Gives the production life as 1980 to 1985 and about 35,000 cameras, and the effective rangefinder base length as 29mm — the only source consulted that publishes the base length at all.
- Macfilos (blog) — Frames the camera as forgotten innovation: aperture-priority automation and off-the-film flash metering in an M-mount rangefinder, two decades before Leica shipped either.
History
The CL was a joint camera. Leitz designed a compact M-mount body it could not build cheaply enough in Wetzlar, Minolta built it in Osaka, and both companies sold it — as the Leica CL and the Leitz Minolta CL, the same camera with two names on the top plate. It ran from 1973 to 1976 and then stopped, and the usual account is that it stopped because it was selling against the M5.
The CLE, seven years later, is not that. Nothing on it carries a Leitz mark, Leitz never sold a version of it, and there is no Leica CLE. What Minolta had from the 1972 agreement was the right to build an M-mount camera, and in 1980 it used that right on its own account. Whether Leitz was consulted at all is not established in anything read for this page.
What Minolta then did with it was put electronics into a rangefinder, which is the part worth recording. The meter is a silicon photodiode reading light off the film surface, and it keeps reading while the shutter is open — it does not calculate a time in advance and commit to it. That single arrangement produces both of the camera’s firsts. Aperture-priority automation falls out of it, because the camera can simply end the exposure when enough light has arrived. So does through-the-lens flash metering, because the same cell watching the film can cut the flash at the right instant. No rangefinder had done either. Leica’s own M7 did not arrive until 2002, twenty-two years later, and even then it metered ambient light before the exposure rather than during it.
The framelines are the other departure. A CL brought up 40 and 90; the CLE adds 28, and the lens itself selects the frame when it is mounted. That is why the 28mm M-Rokkor exists — it is the first M-mount 28 with a frame of its own to sit in, on a body a third thinner than an M4.
Against all of that, the camera has a short rangefinder. The effective base length is 29mm, shorter than any Leica M, and no amount of electronics changes what that does to focusing a fast lens wide open. The reviewer who prefers the CLE to every M ever made still writes that the focus is “not as easy”. And the meter switches off in manual mode, which is a strange decision in a camera whose meter is its whole argument: the photographer who wants to set a speed is the one left with nothing to set it by.
The record is thinner than the camera’s reputation suggests. About 35,000 were built between 1980 and 1985, but that figure is the trade’s and nobody attributes it to Minolta; there is no serial table and no survey behind it. A run of 300 gold cameras is reported for the Japanese market, and the encyclopedia that reports it attaches its own warning to the claim. Even the shutter’s manual range — a specification any manual would settle — was not found in any source consulted for this page, and is left unstated here rather than guessed at.
This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.
Photographs
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