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SRT help...


barnnies

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Have becime the owner of a Minolta SRT 201. Works pretty good and

looks like fun. Some help needed...

 

1) Can't use the meter as the battery is no longer available, it was

a mercury battery... there fore

2) need to take pictures from the seat of my pants. Was looking for

suggestions on setting F-stop/Shutter speed. Heard of the sunny 16

method. Not sure what it is. Comments?

3) I was thinking of a light meter but never used one or even know

how they work. I also have a maxxum 4 setup but the SRT looks like

fun. I would only use it in day light, no flash.

 

Thanks in advance for any help and for all the help I have received

here in the past!

 

Dennis

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i use a hearing aid battery #675, its 1.4volt, the original mercury battery was 1.37 volts, meter over exposes about 1/3stop(nothing) the prob, it lasts only about a month and a half. but they are cheap, about $6.50 for a six pack at any chain drug store.

use my 201 frequently...

great camera...have fun

 

regards

Doug

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I agree. Get the battery. I used my 101 all weekend in Rockport, Gloucester and

Boston MA. It IS fun. You may however, after you purchase a battery, that the meter

no longer works period. Then you will have to rethink our options.

 

Sunny F16 method will work. On a sunny day set your aperture to 16 and the shutter

speed to the closest setting to the ISO film speed. If you are using 400 film set it to

1/500 of a second.....100 ISO goes to 1/125 of a second ..and so on. You can change

your aperture or shutter speed as long as you change the other in an equal and

opposite increment in order to keep the amount of light exposing the film the same.

Simple. And it works because the film manufactures design the film to do that. It is

not a random happy circumstance of film.

Things you will enjoy about the 201 are the mirror lock up and I believe the ability to

do double exposures. It is a classy camera. You will love it.

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There are a number of workarounds for the mercury battery issue. These two articles will probably tell you more than you ever wanted to know:

 

http://www.pcisys.net/~rlsnpjs/minolta/minolta.html

 

http://www.rolleiclub.nl/batt-adapt-US.pdf

 

Only if the meter is dead, I would consider other options like a hand held meter or sunny f16, because the built-in SRT meter is really pretty good.

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Get the 675 Hearing Aid Batteries. Once you know that the meter works, I buy them in an 18-pack for $11 at Costco. That many should last at least 2 years. They don't begin to drain until you activate them by pulling the air-tight tab off of them. At that point, air exposure, not useage, will drain them. In a very dry climate, they might wear out in a month. In a humid climate, you might get 4 months out of them. They are electrically identical to the Wein Cells that are sold in camera stores for $5-7.

 

The Battery chamber of the SRT cameras is larger than the 675 size, so you need a spacer to fit the smaller 675 batteries. The perfect spacer is a Rubber #9 O-ring that costs under 30 cents at Home Depot or other plumbing shops. Also, the SRT's battery caps have a non-conductive decal which shows the battery orientation, in their center that needs to be removed if smaller 675-size batteries are to be used. That decal needs to be peeled off, and make sure that the stick-um that holds the decal is also removed, so you get conductivity between the battery and the battery cap. And once the decal is removed, remember that (+) faces up toward the cap.

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I have an SRT 101 that I kept when I upgraded to an XD 11 some 23 years ago. I brought my SRT to a local camera repair shop for a 40-year check up, and they replaced the battery with one currently available, and recalibrated the meter. It work just great.
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