The Film Retriever

The Beautiful Minolta SR-1  I am going through my familiar cycle of gathering Minoltas again - it has happened twice before and twice I sold off everything to buy Nikon and Olympus. But Minoltas are so good and cheap that they always creep back in again - started with a 7xi, then it was a 700si and then two SR-T (303 and 100). I felt pretty covered by these until a nice, rare, black SR-1 showed up. In a pretty sad state but cheap - and I got it. The public liked the SR-1 in the early 60s and Minolta kept upgrading it throughout its production - depending on which resource you read, there are six to eight different versions (I too believe there are 8 versions rather than 6 but the differences in some models are very small to be considered a different model). Stephen at Cameraquest has a nice summary there and so does "The Rokkor Files". Following the description on the rokkor files mine is "Model-B" from 1960. It is worth noting that my camera has the de...

How do they compare to each other? Over the last couple of months, my zuiko family has grown. Got a cheap 28f2.8 for Christmas and within a few weeks I found a "Made in Japan" 50f/1.8 for £1.99 and a MC 50f/1.4 for £49.99 in different charity shops. The MIJ 50f/1.8 was sold as spares as it was full of fungus - to my surprise when I took it apart the fungus was limited on the outer part of the inner side of the group (the side facing the aperture blades) and cleaned very nicely using white vinegar and then a bit of window cleaner.  There is a tiny spot that is inside the cemented group - I assume it is fungus, but it is very small and faint, limited at the edge of the cemented group - too small to have an impact. The lens spent a couple of days under the UV lamp to kill any remaining fungus spores. The Multicoated 50f/1.4 was another repair story. No trace of fungus when I got it, everything looked clean and bright, but when I shone some light I noticed this foggin...