Minolta SR-T 101

viewfinder

The SRT 101's viewfinder shows the exposure meter's needle at the right side of the finder image. The circle on the second visible needle shows the light value needed for the actual shutter-speed/aperture selection. When these preselections are corrected manually this 2nd needle moves towards the meter's needle. The second image shows the meter in battery control mode: needle over the little rectangle means correct voltage.

The Minolta SRT 101 is a 35mm SLR camera made by Minolta from 1966 through 1975. Users often refer to it as "the tank". It's a heavy, robust and reliable camera, capable of producing great results even 40 years after its introduction.

Camera ads from the 1970s boast of its CLC (Contrast Light Metering), calling it "the brain". CLC is a form of TTL metering with two CDS cells. It compensates for over-exposure by assuming that the upper side of the picture is the sky (overcast) and that the lower part is the subject you want to photograph. ISO values can be set from 6 to 6400. Correct exposure is achieved by matching a needle in the viewfinder to a circle moving with the exposure settings. Strangely though, the needle moves down when light increases.

The Minolta SRT 101 was one of the first cameras to have full aperture TTL metering. This was possible thanks to the fact that Minolta had placed the aperture ring on its Rokkor MC lenses close to the camera body. This way, the aperture cound be communicated mechanically to the metering system inside the camera. Strangely though, contemporary SRT 101 ads do not mention the benefits of this feature.

The SRT 101 has a focal plane cloth shutter with speeds from 1 sec to 1/1000. The film advance lever automatically cocks the shutter, preventing double exposures. Shutter speeds are shown at the bottom of the viewfinder.

It has some interesting features which set it apart from many other SLRs of that time, like mirror lockup, a mechanical self-timer and a depth-of-field preview button.

The manual-focus Rokkor lenses have a very good reputation and some are very fast: the fastest standard lens is 50mm f/1.2.

Links

Information

• Review at Classic Cameras
• Rokkor files
• SRT 101 Manual (JPEG Scans)
• Srt 101 versions and comparison with contemporary SLRs

Photobloggers Using the SRT 101

• hypostyle.net (profile)