It arrived freshly rebuilt with just enough time to shoot a test roll and see what the meter would do. I had an upcoming trip to Europe and was planning to take the XD as my main shooter. When the camera arrived, I sent it off for a full tune up without delay. I’d scored my SRT’s replacement for less money than a good case of beer. I bought the lot just to get at the gem hidden within, a Minolta XD.

The majority of the cameras were run-of-the-mill, and today I can’t even remember what they were. I found myself in such a situation after winning a batch of cameras for less than thirty dollars.

There’s truth to those stories involving online camera auctions and highway robbery. Best of all, this one-time flagship camera was now available for a song, and could often be found for about a hundred dollars. It was smaller and lighter than the SRT, had a much improved meter and a variety of metering modes. It had done the job of getting me hooked on film, but it wasn’t going to follow me much further down the road of my analog journey.Īs I researched what camera would replace the SRT, the XD continued to ping my radar. My personal SRT had clearly seen a lot of these - the film door had to be coaxed into closing, the viewfinder had a crack in it, and the meter needle drooped in depression.

I started shooting film with Minolta’s SRT-101, a historical camera that decades after its creation remains an outstanding machine capable of withstanding severe conditions.

Minolta camera for sale