Canon Canonet 1961

This is the original Canonet. Canon used this model to penetrate the mid-level camera market in the early 60's, they sold over a million original Canonets in the first two years at a price that more than irritated the competition. It's a rock solid camera, much bigger than the later Canonets, almost the size of a SLR. It features auto exposure and full manual control with a fast 45mm/f1.9 lens, it was also the only Canonet with a selenium cell light meter and with the unique Canonflex underbody film advance & rewind.

This example is fully functional, with the original reversible/slip-on metal lens hood and a still reasonable accurate light meter. Battery-less, solar powered photography, going for for almost fifty years in a very slick design package. Please click on an image to view bigger.

Minolta SR-T 101 1966 - 75

According to Annie Leibovitz, her first "real" camera was a Minolta SR-T 101, which she dragged up Mount Fuj without any film. Also in Japan, and about at the same time, W. Eugene Smith used a SR-T 101 to make his famous photographs at Minamata.

It is a real classic and the black bodies are a bit harder to find than the more common silver ones. Photographed with a 100mm/f3.5 TeleRokkor lens, mine is a 2nd generation SR-T made between '70 and '72. Click on an image to view bigger.

minolta "A" 1955 - 57

I found this beautifully made Minolta "A" rangefinder at my local antique dealer for the fair sum of R110.00(us$14.50 at the time), it's in almost perfect condition, except for a previous owner who left their name and a number engraved in the aluminum body.

The first ever fixed lens rangefinder made by Minolta, it came out with a Rokkor 45mm/f3.5 lens. The shutter speed can be adjusted from 1sec to a 300th by a little wheel on top of the camera. I removed a roll of film from the film bay and replaced it with a new roll of Fuji Superia 200 which I've exposed in the mean time, I will have it developed shortly, watch this space.

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Ps. This was posted before on my other blog, but I started this dedicated classic camera blog, thus the repost.