The Minolta SR-T I kept for myself
I buy and sell cameras in an antiques market here in Cardiff (read more over on camerasetc.wales), which is really just an excuse to play with the near infinite backlog of cameras that have existed since photography first appeared. And one series of cameras that I find fascinating is the Minolta SR-T range.
About the Minolta SR-T
By Smial - Own work, FAL, Wikimedia
The Minolta SR-T 101 first appeared in 1966 and was produced for a remarkably long time. I won't go into huge detail here so go check out the full history of the range over on rokkorfiles.com. The SR-T range was certainly iconic, but has perhaps not enjoyed the revival or notoriety of some other camera ranges from that era in recent years like the Nikon F or Olympus OM.
The SR-T range are heavy blocks of cameras. When you accidentally crack yourself in the knee with one of these you will certainly be reminded of that fact. But they are beautiful. There's a particularly nice shape to the camera body which is quite uncommon - flat on the front but curved on the back, and rather wide. It's a camera with purpose, and it makes a wonderfully crisp sound when you fire the shutter. It makes a dull thunk when you hit yourself on the knee.
There are a few reasons why I think their popularity has waned:
- The Minolta name is gone from the modern world, their brand being absorbed by Sony in the 2000s
- They really are quite heavy
- They weren't as popular as something like the Olympus OM range, and therefore there are fewer cheap lenses on the market now
- Having the on/off switch for the light meter on the bottom of the camera is mental
- They're a bit of a bugger to service, at least quickly, and most of them need servicing
Later Minolta film SLRs are also problematic due to the common use of electrolytic capacitors, which have rendered many of them useless. Another shame, as many of those models are equally fantastic.
About my Minolta SR-T 100
Earlier this year I met Tony; a lovely man, in his 80s, who was looking to sell his old cameras. This happens quite a lot in the market, but it's usually quite rare that someone is looking to sell on their own cameras - I tend to buy most of them from relatives of people who've passed away.
Anyway, Tony had a bunch of camera gear to sell and much of it was Minolta SR-T stuff. He had a top-end SR-T 303 in excellent condition, a bunch of very clean lenses, some miniature cameras like a Minolta-16 and a Rollei 35; and an absolutely battered SR-T 100 - the "basic" model of the range, launched in 1971:
This camera has clearly seen a lot of use. I love to chat and I especially like learning about the stories of people who enjoy photography, as it's something I can easily relate to. One of the things I like the most about selling cameras in the antiques market is the previous generations sharing their stories with me - there's a lot of film photography knowledge that will disappear with them. Tony had this camera from new until 2025 when I bought it from him. I believe he bought it in Jamaica, or when he was still living in Jamaica, and it had travelled with him when he left. It has obviously been heavily used and/or dropped, with all the corners bashed, the prism heavily dented, the back door being slightly wonky, and the lens mount having that bit of play that indicates heavy use.
And you know what? It runs like a dream. This isn't a collector's camera; this is a photographer's camera.
Tony's brother was a Minolta repair technician in Jamaica, and he kept his brother's camera serviced and working all those years. When I bought the camera from Tony he included the (quite hard to find) Minolta service manual his brother had used. It has some really quite fun illustrations in it, alongside handwritten notes:
I actually hadn't intended to keep Tony's SR-T 100, and it sat on display in the market for the past 6 months priced at £60 with its kit lens, which is itself a bit of an oddity as it only shipped with this model from what I can tell. I've showed it to many people, and retold the story of how it ended up here, but it took me a surprisingly long time to realise that the only person the story really means something to is me, because I'm the one who met Tony.
So I finally just decided to keep it for myself. And, because I can't help myself, I also took the mint Rokkor 50mm f/1.4 that too hadn't sold. I'm only human.
Maintaining an SR-T
Most SR-T bodies I have had tend to exhibit a quite irritating squeak when you wind the shutter. This is apparently due to grease drying out inside the shutter rollers, which is a bit of a nightmare to repair. And although it is repairable, the value of these cameras is not high enough for most people to warrant putting in the effort to fully service them any longer. They also have a few other awkward aspects that make service time-consuming, like foam pads around the focusing screen (which if you touch in the wrong way is permanently damaged), and a fairly odd mirror buffer, both of which require a lot of disassembly in order to reach. That disassembly also involves disconnecting a lot of what is basically a watch mechanism inside the body, which I haven't been brave enough to attempt - yet.
And that's the thing for me - this camera was kept running for over 50 years. It might be the most basic SR-T model, but because of how it was looked after and used, it doesn't squeak. It's the best-running SR-T I've had. And now it falls to me to keep it that way.
I have the repair manual, and I have 3 excellent videos on an otherwise empty YouTube channel from AOK Camera covering the full disassembly and service of the camera. If you're in the USA then their service looks to be worth checking out. I'm not going to start with Tony's SR-T 100, obviously, not least because it's still running. But I will start picking up cheap, knackered, SR-T models to practice on so that one day I can service it correctly.
Learning to service SR-Ts is, commercially, a bit pointless. I don't think anyone is going to pay 4x the going rate for an SR-T just so it doesn't squeak. But these are beautiful bits of engineering and they deserve to keep on going.