Minolta SRT 101
Earlier today I rushed to work. An eBay auction was ending just as I was due to arrive. I made it with 1 minute to go. The auction was for a Minolta SRT 101.
It’s an old SLR camera produced from 1966 to 1975. It was a revolutionary camera in its time offering TTL centerweigh metering with fully automatic aperture. Most cameras of the time were cumbersome and slow to use compared to the SRT 101 as they had stop-down metering which involved checking the meter reading by pressing a button which closed the viewfinder. Not an ideal way to capture fleeting moments.
Minolta also managed to implement a system for in-viewfinder meter reading and shutter speed. For its time this was fantastic and sped up the process of decision making for photographers as they no longer had to compose shots, look away from the viewfinder to make adjustments and then re-compose within the viewfinder. It also has a DOF preview which looks really cool.
The camera I bought comes with two really neat lenses. They are both MC Rokkor so they are ideally suited to the camera with all auto functions working as intended. One is a 50/1.4 and the other a 28/2.8. In this day and age those lenses would be worth a pretty penny for our current new camera ranges.
I’m really looking forward to testing out this camera. I know it’s going to be a tank to carry around so I’ll still most likely be hunting for an Olympus 35 SP for general street photography.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[...] another note, I did receive a camera and some film yesterday. It’s the Minolta SRT 101 I bought a week ago but unfortunately with a lazy focal plane shutter. Hopefully I can fix it and [...]