Minolta SRT101 with Minolta MD Rokkor 28mm F3.5 lens.

The Minolta SR-T 101 is a 35mm SLR camera made by Minolta Camera Co. Ltd, Japan, premiering in the March 1966 Japan Camera Show. 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. However, the SR-T 101 has many significant features apart from the TTL meter. Perhaps the most notable one was the full aperture metering facility, which automatically compensates for the speed of the lens fitted on the camera at any time, a feature it took Nikon twelve more years to figure out how to accomplish. Full aperture metering in 35mm SLR cameras was pioneered by the brilliant Tokyo Kogaku Topcon RE-Super, a feature lacking in every screw mount camera until Olympus Kogaku introduced the Olympus FTL, their first full frame 35mm SLR in 1971, which was abandoned one year later in favor of the OM system.

The SR-T has an extremely bright finder with a central micro prism focusing aid that proves to be very accurate in most cases, since even when no visible lines are present in the subject, all out-of-focus objects appear to shimmer. Two exposure meter needles and the selected shutter speed are shown in the viewfinder. A small rectangle to the right indicates the acceptable needle deflection range for a healthy battery when the ON/OFF switch on the camera base is set to the battery check position labelled BC. Battery power is saved by placing the switch in the OFF position whenever the camera is not used. Battery power may also be saved by keeping the lens cap on whenever possible, since the exposure meter draws current in proportion to light intensity entering the camera lens. 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.