Minolta SR-T 101

The Minolta SR-T 101 is a 35mm manual focus SLR camera with Through-The-Lens exposure metering – TTL for short – that was launched in 1966 by Minolta Camera Co.

It was aimed at demanding amateur and semi-professional photographers. The SR-T 101 stayed in production for ten years with only minor changes. Sales began in April 1966 and it stayed in production with only minor changes for ten years, the result of the thorough development effort that was put into the camera.

The body is a direct continuation of the Minolta SR-7 model V of 1962, itself an innovative camera, with the addition of through-the-lens (TTL) metering and additional features. Another unique feature of the SR-T 101 besides the open aperture metering at the time of its release to the public at Photokina in 1966 was the so called “CLC”-metering characteristic. “CLC” stands for “contrast-light-compensation” and was a kind of an early Matrix metering: Two CdS-cells, placed at the front and rear end of the viewfinder prism, provide an overlapping coverage of the center-weighted light-detection area and are electronically coupled together.

The SR-T 101 had a cloth focal plane shutter with speeds from 1 sec to 1/1000 sec. The film advance lever automatically cocks the shutter, preventing double exposures.