The Christmas “season” is in full swing these days. And one of the benefits to having satellite TV with 113 different channels at your fingertips is that you’re bound to come across a lion’s share of seasonal programming. One of my favorites has always been Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I’m NOT talking about the 2000, live-action, Jim Carrey version, or the brand-new animated movie. I mean the old 1966 Boris Karloff, Chuck Jones-animated version. As a kid, I’d eagerly thumb through the TV Guide each year to note the date and time it would be broadcast. Some of you will know this, but Millenials and Gen Z’ers out there might be surprised to find out that back in the days of 3-network television, these Christmas specials would only air once a year. So, you didn’t want to miss it. Otherwise, it would be a long-year’s wait until you got the next opportunity to see it.
Now, you may be wondering why I’m writing about the Grinch in a blog dedicated to old cameras. Well, it just so happens that the same year The Grinch premiered on TV, 1966, was the same year that Minolta premiered it’s SRT-series of cameras with the classic SRT-101.
To a lot of young photographers these days, the name Minolta won’t mean much. The longtime camera manufacturer merged with Konica in 2003. And only 3 years later decided to pack it all in and remove itself from the photography market altogether – thus bidding farewell to almost a century in the camera business. It makes me a little sad to think about that. My first “real” camera – like a lot of other budding photographers in the early 1980s – was a Minolta X-700. And in the decade prior and subsequent to that, the brand fought equally (more or less) with the likes of Canon, Nikon, and Pentax for a share of the consumer camera market. But for now, let’s get back to the mid-1960s.
Today we take a camera’s internal light meter for granted. Without it we would almost certainly be lost. But back in the mid-60s it was a novel concept. Light metering had – up that time – been the job of a completely separate piece of photographic equipment: the hand-held light meter. And just like every revolutionary step towards an uncertain future, the notion of an internal, built-in light meter fueled great debate among photographers.
Light meters were first introduced into camera designs as an add-on device. Sometimes it would sit atop the pentaprism housing (Asahi Pentax H3). Sometimes it would attach to the shutter speed dial (Canonflex, Minolta SR-1). Sometimes it was built into the body, given away by a generally ugly honeycombed glass window on the camera front (Nikkorex, Canonflex RM). But when Asahi Pentax debuted the Spotmatic in 1964, it offered something new- through-the-Lens (TTL) metering. The great benefit of this design was that only the part of the scene captured by the lens would be measured – instead of just everything in front of the camera.
These early TTL metering designs required you to stop down the lens to the taking aperture to achieve the correct reading. This, of course, could darken the viewfinder significantly and make it hard to achieve proper focus. Of course you could focus first, then stop the lens down to meter – and since we didn’t know any better, this was still a great step forward for metering.
Around that same time, Tokyo Kogaku (Topcon) released the RE-Super SLR. This would be historically significant in that the camera was the first to utilize “full-aperture metering”. This meant that you could use TTL metering without having to stop down the lens to shooting aperture – maintaining that bright viewfinder for sure focusing. The Topcon placed the metering cells behind the mirror, which meant the mirror had to be un-silvered in some places to allow the light to pass through.
All of this brings us to the hero of this post – the Minolta SRT-101. With the release of the 101 in 1966, Minolta gave us full-aperture TTL metering with the metering cells located in the pentaprism. This meant that the mirror was 100% usable to visualize the scene – unobstructed by any marks that would otherwise be needed to transmit light through the mirror to the cells. This design would soon become the more-or-less default method of metering for all cameras going forward.
In addition to full-aperture metering, the SRT-101 also gave us a bit of a preview of what would become multi-pattern (matrix, evaluative) metering in cameras beginning in the late 1980s. The SRT series used two metering cells in the pentaprism. One measured light at the top of the frame, one measured light at the bottom. The combination of the two readings – with a bit more weight given to the bottom one – was intended to compensate for high contrast lighting scenarios. This was Minolta’s CLC (Contrast Light Compensator) system. And it worked pretty well in those situations where you might have an overly bright sky that would normally skew a meter reading and lead to underexposure. The SR-T 101 was immensely popular and stayed in production until 1975.
| More Minolta on Vintage Camera Digest |
|---|
| Comparison of select SRT models |
| Minolta Virtual Museum |
| Sales Brochure (PDF) A Guide to the Minolta SLR System of Creative Photography |
| Sales Brochure (PDF) Minolta Quick Reference Guide |
| Sales Brochure (PDF) Minolta SR-T Cameras and Systems |
| Minolta SR-T 102 Manual (PDF) |
| Minolta SR-T 200 | 201 | 202 Manual (PDF) |
In 1973, Minolta added a new flagship model to the line – the SR-T 102 – whose features relegated the 101 to second place. The new features included split-image focusing, a full-information viewfinder and a reliable multi-exposure capability. The early 102s also kept the 101’s mirror lock-up, though at some point during their two year production life that feature was sadly dropped.
In 1975, the SRT line got an overall update. The SRT-201 replaced the aging 101 but retained most of the former’s features – the notable exception being mirror lock-up and the less-notable exception being FP flash sync. Also released that year was the upgrade to the SR-T 102 – the SRT-202. The 202 maintained the full-information viewfinder, split-image focusing and multi-exposure capability. It lost the mirror lock-up, but gained a new feature that indicated that film was loaded correctly. I suppose that was generally more useful, since loading film manually can lead to a lot more mistakes than times you’d need mirror lock-up.
All in all, the SR-T series cameras are some of my favorites. They’re well-built, manual, no-frills machines. And they’re quite reliable in my experience. When paired with excellent Minolta Rokkor lenses, they offer just about anything a budding film photographer would need except the capability for a motor drive. I like them so much that I have a group of them that I use for some of the classes I teach. I’d highly recommend them for someone looking to get into film photography. And if I had to pick a favorite of the bunch it would be an early 102 with the mirror lock-up feature. I really like having the aperture and shutter selection visible in the finder. Modern cameras have spoiled me in that regard.
See below for the technical specs, followed by a gallery of images photographed with these great cameras.
Technical Specifications of the Minolta SR-T Series
SR-T 100
Year Introduced: 1971
Original List Price w/50 1.9 (1972): $159.50
Price in 2021 Dollars: *$1094.63
SR-T 101
Year Introduced: 1966
Original List Price w/58 1.4 (1967): $319.00
Price in 2021 Dollars: *$2654.65
SR-T 102
Year Introduced: 1973
Original List Price w/50 1.4 (1973): $329.00
Price in 2021 Dollars: *$2059.57
SR-T 200
Year Introduced: 1975
Original List Price w/ 50 2.0 (1975): $189.95
Price in 2021 Dollars: *$981.34
SR-T 201
Year Introduced: 1975
Original List Price w/ 50 1.4(1975): $254.95
Price in 2021 Dollars: *$1317.15
SR-T 202
Year Introduced: 1975
Original List Price w/50 1.4 (1975): $284.50
Price in 2021 Dollars: *$1469.82
All Models
Manufacturer: Minolta Camera Company
Film Format: 35mm
Shutter: manual, horizontal travel, cloth
Self-timer: Yes (except 100, 200)
Shutter Speeds: 1/1000 to 1-sec plus B (1/500 to 1-sec plus B on 100)
Shutter Release: on top
Built-in Meter: Two prism-mounted CdS cells, averaging
Film Speed/ASA Range: 6-6400
Flash Sync
SR-T 101: 1/60, separate X and FP PC-Terminal, no hot shoe
SR-T 102: 1/60, X and FP PC-Terminal (switch), hot shoe
SR-T 201: 1/60, X-sync only PC-Terminal, hot shoe
SR-T 202: 1/60, X and FP PC-Terminal (switch), hot shoe
Film Advance: Single-stroke lever on top
Mirror: Instant-return
Other points of note: DOF preview, mirror lock-up on 101 and early 102, Film load status on 102.
* Calculated using 2013dollars.com
Vintage Camera Digest 