Minolta SR-M

The cable runs five metres from the hide to a black camera on a low tripod beside the feeder. A woodpecker lands. Somebody's thumb goes down on the button at the end of the cord, and the Minolta SR-M fires and winds itself on with nobody near it. The exposure was worked out an hour ago, before anyone climbed into the hide, because this body can't help with that. It has no meter at all.

Minolta released it on 25 April 1970 as the company's first motorised camera, and it went about the job bluntly: the drive is part of the body and does not come off. Eight AA cells live in a detachable grip. With the grip fitted it shoots single frames or runs at 3 fps, and the motor rewinds too. Pull the grip and it carries on as a hand-wound mechanical SLR. Rokkorfiles lists 1,560 g with the 55mm f/1.7, and that figure leaves the batteries out. Your neck notices by lunchtime.

Now count what Minolta left off. No self-timer, no depth-of-field preview, black paint only, and no meter, at a time when the SR-T 101 already read light through the lens. Even the meterless SR-1s could take a clip-on meter; the SR-M offered nothing of the kind in its accessory list. Rokkorfiles puts the omission down to the CdS cells of 1970: too slow to react, and blind while the mirror was up, they couldn't re-read the light between frames of a burst. Mirror lock-up stayed, and the manual pitches it for photomicrography. Add remote cords, intervalometers and a 250-exposure back, and you can see who Minolta had in mind. The microscope bench and the bird hide, not the family holiday.

Look through the eyepiece and you get 94 percent of the frame on ground glass with a microprism spot, and nothing else. No needle, no scale. The frame counter sits on the back of the motor housing, and it's the best idea on the camera: preset it when you load and the drive stops after the number of frames you chose, instead of fighting the end of the roll. The manual warns bulk loaders to fasten the film end securely, or the motor can rip the whole length off the spool. On continuous, keep the dial at 1/30 or faster. Electronic flash syncs at 1/60. The shutter is mechanical cloth, a full second to 1/1000 plus B, so flat batteries cost you the motor and nothing more.

The blank finder hurts most on exactly the work the motor was built for. A burst leaves no time to second-guess, and sunny 16 only stretches so far once cloud starts drifting over the feeder. Take an incident reading with the Zone Light Meter app where the bird will land, set it, and you have the meter Minolta never fitted. Check again whenever the light shifts; the body won't warn you.

Today the SR-M sells as a collectable first and a camera second. Not many were made. The black paint brasses easily, so a clean one takes patience to find. If you just want the shutter and Rokkor glass, an SR-T 101 gives you the same 1 s to 1/1000 range plus a through-the-lens meter for far less money. Whatever premium you pay goes to the drive, so test that before anything else: fresh cells in the grip, a dummy roll, the lever on continuous. An even, steady rhythm is what you're paying for. A stutter means a repair bill on a motor nobody makes parts for anymore.