C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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The Minolta SR-1 (1959) is a fully mechanical, meterless 35mm SLR and the foundational camera of Minolta's SR bayonet system. It shipped alongside the more expensive SR-2 (which topped out at 1/1000s as well but was marketed as the flagship) and established the SR mount that would evolve through MC and MD variants for the next two decades. With no electronics and no meter, the SR-1 is purely mechanical: set exposure by external meter or sunny-16, wind, shoot.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
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Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
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Before you buy used
About this camera
Minolta's first mass-market SLR — the clean-slate manual that launched the SR bayonet system.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm |
| Mount | Minolta SR bayonet |
| Years | 1959–1966 |
| Shutter | 1s – 1/1000s + B, mechanical horizontal cloth |
| Flash sync | 1/60s (X-sync) |
| Meter | None |
| Modes | Manual only |
| Battery | None required |
Minolta introduced the SR-2 and SR-1 simultaneously in 1958–1959 as Japan's second generation of domestic SLRs, following the Asahiflex / Pentax S and Nikon F lineage. The SR-2 was the premium variant; the SR-1 the stripped economy body sharing the same SR bayonet mount. A revised SR-1 ("SR-1s") appeared around 1963–1965 with minor cosmetic and mechanical updates.
The SR-1 was discontinued as the SR-7 (with built-in CdS meter) made meterless bodies commercially obsolete. Its SR bayonet, however, continued as the MC-mount standard on the SRT series and formed the mechanical basis of the later MD bayonet used by the X-700 line.
The SR-1's significance is architectural: the SR bayonet defined the physical interface for every Minolta manual-focus lens made through 1987. MC Rokkor lenses mount on SR-1 bodies with full mechanical coupling, making the SR-1 a functional shooting platform for some of the most optically respected glass of the 1960s and 1970s — the 58mm f/1.4, the 35mm f/1.8, the 100mm f/2.5. As a no-meter body, it pairs naturally with handheld lightmeters or the sunny-16 rule, and it is genuinely failure-resistant: there is nothing electronic to fail.
For collectors, the SR-1 documents Minolta's transition from bellows and rangefinder bodies to the SLR platform that would make them a globally competitive brand.
The SR-1 accepts any Minolta SR-mount lens, including MC Rokkor and early SR Rokkor variants. Stop-down metering is not applicable (no meter), so all lenses couple mechanically at full aperture for composing and stop down at shutter release. MD-mount lenses (post-1977) mount physically but lack the aperture-index tab needed for meter coupling on later bodies — on the SR-1, this is irrelevant since there is no meter.
Rokkor highlights compatible with the SR-1:
BW
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
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Kodak Ektar 100 is a fine-grain C-41 color negative film with saturated color and high sharpness.
View profile →Minolta SR-1
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