My one, only, and first (real) 35mm camera is a Minolta SRT 101 dating to 1971-ish. It was apparently ahead of its time in terms of through-the-lens (TTL) metering and even by today’s standards it seems to work pretty damn good as far as I can tell.
That said, there is a small obstacle to getting the light meter running to begin with. The camera is designed to use the obsolete and hard-to-obtain PX625 battery. Of course, the light meter is the only thing that needs the battery, so if you can set up your shots by other means the camera works great. In fact, for a while I was using a light meter app on my smartphone and/or using the Sunny 16 rule as a basis for guesstimating the exposure, and that worked fine enough that I still occasionally forget that the camera even has a built-in light meter. But it’s definitely worth using. Continue reading
junkyard photo 