Minolta srT202
Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:25 pm
Got this camera with two lenses several months ago and never got around to shooting it until yesterday. The battery for the meter was a problem I think is the reason why. I changed the battery again and this time the meter perked into life.
This camera was the flagship of the T series that Minolta made from 66 to 81. It was still a mechanical shutter and no auto focus camera. But it was pretty sporty in it's day because of all the features... like "CLC" ... which stood for constant light compensator. What this means was that unlike the lessor models like the Pentax K1000 and other popular SLR cameras of the era, it had two light cells in the pentaprisim housing that read both the highlight and the shadow in what was seen in the viewfinder and split the difference in the needle match indication. The competion only had center weighted meters. A bragging point in the day. It also had a depth of field button at the bottom of the lens housing and a window in the back top corner to tell you if you had film in the camera or not. And....whoopee.. when you looked through the viewfinder there was a window at the top that would back light to show the aperture and a bracketed indication on a list of shutter speeds to show you what you had it on in the bottom window. As you moved the shutter or aperture rings or knobs the match needle would react. Notice.. back light..no electronic light behind it, only daylight. And... one other thing that comes to mind, it had a circular finger operated by rough surface contact switch on the bottom. You could turn the camera meter on or off or into test mode to see if the battery was working. Other competitive cameras generally didn't have anything like. And last....and perhaps least... the battery chamber was opened by thumb twisting friction rather than a loose coin.
The camera worked pretty good. The Minolta 50 mm was really as sharp as it's advertised reputation. The Tokina 70-210 wasn't bad either. The biggest problem was that the meter seemed to be weighted to faster shutter speeds for aperture than I would have guessed best. I think the dual light sensors might have played a part in that perhaps one of them wasn't working. I developed my negative an extra 40 seconds on guess at compensation for underexposure but I could have added less.
This camera was the flagship of the T series that Minolta made from 66 to 81. It was still a mechanical shutter and no auto focus camera. But it was pretty sporty in it's day because of all the features... like "CLC" ... which stood for constant light compensator. What this means was that unlike the lessor models like the Pentax K1000 and other popular SLR cameras of the era, it had two light cells in the pentaprisim housing that read both the highlight and the shadow in what was seen in the viewfinder and split the difference in the needle match indication. The competion only had center weighted meters. A bragging point in the day. It also had a depth of field button at the bottom of the lens housing and a window in the back top corner to tell you if you had film in the camera or not. And....whoopee.. when you looked through the viewfinder there was a window at the top that would back light to show the aperture and a bracketed indication on a list of shutter speeds to show you what you had it on in the bottom window. As you moved the shutter or aperture rings or knobs the match needle would react. Notice.. back light..no electronic light behind it, only daylight. And... one other thing that comes to mind, it had a circular finger operated by rough surface contact switch on the bottom. You could turn the camera meter on or off or into test mode to see if the battery was working. Other competitive cameras generally didn't have anything like. And last....and perhaps least... the battery chamber was opened by thumb twisting friction rather than a loose coin.
The camera worked pretty good. The Minolta 50 mm was really as sharp as it's advertised reputation. The Tokina 70-210 wasn't bad either. The biggest problem was that the meter seemed to be weighted to faster shutter speeds for aperture than I would have guessed best. I think the dual light sensors might have played a part in that perhaps one of them wasn't working. I developed my negative an extra 40 seconds on guess at compensation for underexposure but I could have added less.