Bill Smith's Photography

It has been a crappy spring so far, as of publishing it has only started to warm up, early to mid May it felt more like Deluxe April with the distressed pewter skies, endless rain forcasts and cool temperatures. My camera club put on its annual Cameras and Beers night, I grabbed my Minolta SRT 200 and a roll of Rollei RPX 400, I was surprised at how accurate the meter in the camera was with the MR9 adapter. and I wanted to see what I got with pushing RPX 400 to 1600. The results are gritty matching the mood of the lighting and the "Fine British Weather" we have been getting. Puahed RPX 400 doesn't have quite the refinement of say Ilford HP5 pushed to 1600 again the grittiness plays well with the mood. Camera: Minolta SRT 200, MC Rokkoer lenses. Film: Rollei RPX 400, pushed to 1600, HC110 B.

I haven't been to a Camerama Camera Show in ages and I've been on a Minolta kick, I wound up with two bodies, a mint SRT200 which was their entry-level camera and a cosmetically nice SRT101 but it needs a serious overhaul. Considering I only paid $10 for that particular body, once rebuilt will last me a lifetime, and you can't have enough SRT 101's. Getting back to the SRT200. It was Minolta's entry-level model, it still had the great CLC metering and depth of field preview. It lost mirror lock up and the self-timer. Also in the viewfinder, you lost the aperture read out. This isn't the end of the universe, Nikkormats and the original Canon FTB's didn't have aperture readouts and the SRT200 is way better than a Pentax K1000 because you have an on-off switch and you have access to the sweet Rokkor glass. Shooting with an SRT200 is like shooting a de-contented SRT102 or 202. If you're a Minolta SRT fan and come across one, and the price is right, ...