1959 srt 101 Minolta

Why do you want to shoot to film?

I can understand it if you have a darkroom but if you're just going to have someone else do the processing and printing I don't get it.

Haven't used that particular model, but I do have a Minolta 7xi that I have had since 1991. Lovely camera. Minolta was always a well made product.

I am surprised that you want to go to film after shooting digital for so long. Especially at the cost to do so.

I was in the film processing business for 38 years before the advent of digital changed the market completely. Almost nobody shoots film anymore.

As a prof photog with a long history with old cameras, I'm quite familiar with it. Either your recall of the model number or your year is wrong as the camera went in production in 1966. The model that came out in 1959 was the SR-1.

It was innovative as it was an TTL meter which allowed the meter setting to compensate for whatever speed lens was attached. It was 12 yrs ahead of state of the art Nikon models.

My sister had one and when she visited the Grand Canyon in 1970, it was her camera that worked when others failed. For it's day, it was the reliable chevy impala.

However my love of old camera aside, I'd be hard pressed to want to use it in this day ang age to get well shot images. By now, unless it was cleaned lubed and adjusted on a periodic basis , the condition of the camera's shutter is mostly likely worn, the lube has dried out, the light meter is more than likely way off calibration or gone. Hopefully, the batterywas removed, 'cause if it has not been removed for years, it could have leaked and caused corrosion.

Incidentally, the metering circuit is dependent on an obsolete mercury battery. It may be replaced using a zinc-air hearing aid 1.4 volt battery, which usually comes in a six-pack and is not very expensive.

"There are many internal mechanisms that may fail on a forty year old camera, and the SR-T 101 is no exception. The only serious trouble is related to the exposure meter movement itself, in which the tiny coil tends to break, this situation requires a replacement. The back door rubber sealing foam will usually need replacement, and so will a small strip of same cushioning the mirror when it goes up. A strip of this may be cut from a similar sealing material from a hardware store. All other problems are easily put right with a minimum of effort and tools, unless the camera is worn out, which rarely happens. In fact, anybody who figures out how to remove the top cover without causing any damage may repair it oneself.
"
::

Yea. That's what I was going to say.

Mostly for the experience.
I have never shot film beyond the point and shoot disposable camera you find in the store.

I need / want to work on my technical abilities and I feel I am cheating using my digital to tell me what to do.
Granted, I can look at almost any situation and know with in a few points of how to set up my camera for a good exposure .. I just think that using film will help me get even better and could make photos look better too.

But I do not have a darkroom. Why is that better?
Is that expensive to have/maintain?

This would explain why the things I am told to do with it do not work.
I got the camera with a printed out manual. The manual says it is a 1959 model. Yet , nothing quite fits.
Wrong manual.

There is a recent service date for the camera that is with in the last 8 years. I will take it in and have it checked out again to see if it is working.

I have several others I would like to try too but I do not think film is made to accommodate the others.

This one should take regular 35mm film yes?
Is it really that hard to find film anymore?

I grew up in a house with a dark room in the basement.
My mom did children's portraits and used this graflex 3x4.
She taught me how to develop photos and let me tell you...it was a thrill to see that image appear very slowly.



I laid my pentax aside but I wish you the best in setting up a dark room and getting into real film

Most digital SLR cameras will allow you to override the automatic settings so that you can still make your own decisions about exposure.

Shooting film and then having someone else process and print it takes away about 80% of the creative control you have over the image. The darkroom is where the magic happens.

Really, just about every "tweak" you can do in photoshop can be done in a darkroom, its just a lot more time consuming and a lot more expensive.

I can't speak for anyone else but for me it wasn't unusal to spend days working on one print -- trying to coax things out of the negative. I could blow through a stack of paper getting things just right.

All this carping about the high cost of everything misses the point in my mind...I recently bought a dandy Pentax DSLR, at a close out price approaching $500. It is admittedly a wonderful device, but as I took it home I couldn't help wondering, "What will the $500 dollar picture be?" I couldn't decide, but it probably turned out to be a grand-daughter picture or something. Since then, I have probably taken 600 or so additional pictures, and, for the most part, they were technically superior, I'm sure. But I probably only printed a half-dozen of them, the rest either disappeared into the morass of my voluminous hard drive, or met their demise in the cosmic bit-bucket.

I also have acquired over the years, from ebay & other places, a variety of film cameras, mostly at astoundingly reasonable prices. They all have a quirky uniqueness to them, and for some reason, I get an odd sense of adventure when I load one up and venture out intent on shooting "a whole roll" of some mystery film that I have acquired on a whim from various places. When I am finished, I go to the 1 hour lab at Walmart, and for $4 or so, they will develop and put them on CD (no prints). Then I take them home and muse through them..torturing them sometimes with Irfanview or photoshop, just for the fun of it.

I have two of the SRT cameras, and they are a joy to use and represent to a large extent a "purity of experience" which has been, in large part, automated away in the present day techno-marvel photo recording devices.

welcome to a2k

nice post

It's quite a long time ago since I made my own prints (roll film at first, later when I got a SLR, 35mm as well.)
Until recently, I got my films done by a local photo shop. But the stopped doing it.
I've tried the service she sends the photos to and which she recommeded since she uses it for her own works - but even if it is handmade, I don't like it. You pay too much for what you finally get.

(I remember having spend a whole week [in the afternoon] and the following weekend in our school's dark room: got a state prize for that photo later, my first [and nearly only]. )

I was using father's Zeiss camera (Contaflex Super, from 1962) at first.
And when I was buying a new, own camera, I didn't know that you could override the automatic settings. So I spent quite a lot of money more to get my Nikon M

Oops, again: it's from 1959, indeed - the Contaflex Super (new) is from 1962.

yes, yes , yes!
Thats it!
that is exactly what I want to do and the perfect wording for the reason why.

I do not plan on using this camera for a living ( unless I can learn it and work it just so ) but that is not my goal.
I just want to have fun. I want to learn about using film . ( probably not much I do not already know)
I want to explore with a completely manual camera.
I want to see how dingy the photos are from an old camera
Play with it. Enjoy it.

It took me a bit to learn how to override everything on my camera too.
though I can not turn it ALL off, I can make it about 80% manual . Maybe less actually..

I guess I just don't get it.

I switched to digital about a dozen years ago and my digital camera isn't all that different from my film camera.

If you're having the negatives put onto a disc why aren't you just shooting digital and bruning to a disc?

To me, the whole beauty of film is in the choosing of a "project", choosing what kind of film to use for the project, deciding how to develop the film, choosing the right paper for the print, and perfecting the print.

You can still do all that with digital - change the color balance, change the "film" speed, change your depth of field, etc.

Maybe I just worked with film to long to consider it quirky or adventerous.

There still is no replacement for a well crafted silver gelatin print - shooting to film without taking that next step just seems sort of pointless to me.

But to each their own.

Have fun!

pointless.
No. not at all.
You have had the time and ability to work with film. I have not.
The thought of being able to do it? Having a few older cameras to pick from and the time to being working on it? That to me sounds like fun.

it isnt about technicalities. It isnt about expensive equipment ( not yet)
it is about doing something I have not done.

And I might move to wanting a dark room of my own. I would not know that yet as I have not worked with film before. Only digital .

ya gotta start some where right..

Got to know the camera meanwhile, shewolf?

Not yet.
I have not purchased any film.
The camera is at wolf camera shop right now. I am hoping it does not require a lot of repair.