Is there a digital film canister that I can use in place of a standard film canister?

Question

I have an old Minolta SRT-202 SLR. Ok, I know its 35 years old, but it is still in excellent condition. Anyway, rather than putting in 35mm film, I was wondering if there is some kind of digital attachment that could take the film's place. I don't even know what to call it.

I'm not looking for a lens adapter. I just want to use this old SLR to take digital photos. Why? Because I'm cheap and don't want to pay for film processing.

Answer 1

Nope, You need a digital chip installed, a battery, a screen, a processor, some memory, it's not even remotely possible, and if it was it would cost more than just buying a digital camera.

Answer 2

Digital Backs are what you're seeking . I'm thinking they replace the film with a  digital sensor but would not know if they are available for your camera.

Worth a go at Google or a Minolta specialist....Good luck.

PS. Perhaps it's time to switch altogether. I put it off all this time but it was worth it.. Using canon 450d, loving it, light, easy, fantastic immage quality and possibly even adapters to use your existing lenses.  

Answer 3

No there isn't.

Apart from that your lenses are strictly film era lenses, the way they disperse light at the image side would not be suitable for use with a flat digital sensor.

There was a convincing hoax on therokkerfiles.com about the chinese company seagull producing a minolta SR mount (the correct name for the minolta manual focus mount from the SR- range to the x700) digital SLR but sadly it wasn't to be.

You can get adaptors to mount the SR lenses on other manufacturers bodies, including minolta/sony, but apart from the conversion factor of the adaptor you often have a crop because of the smaller sensor.

I have an Sr-T101 and and Sr-T303a and they are still joyous to use, the perfect antithesis to automated everything.  

I would suggest that a film scanner is your best way forward if you wish to keep using your fine classic camera and the famous rokkor lenses.

Most labs will do develop only for a couple of quid.

And whisper this bit....  film IS better.

Answer 4

What you want is a digital back.  However, you won't find one for the SRT-202.  Only a few film SLRs had digital backs made for them.  They were usually the cameras that were current at the time.  (A Canon EOS D6000 was basically an EOS-1N with a Kodak 6 megapixel digital back.  The Nikon F5 had a digital back in the Kodak DCS-760.)

Your Minolta also uses an older lens mount.  Unfortunately, the Minolta MC lens mount that the SRT series used, was replace by the MD mount, and then by another mount. Currently, Sony Alpha dSLR's take recent Konica/Minolta autofocus lenses, but not the ones from the SRT era.  There may be an adapter that will allow you to use the lenses, but there will be limitations.  Most obvious is manual focus only.  Another is having to use "stop-down metering".

Answer 5

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but last night on Mythbusters they had a very old film camera with a digital attachment on the back so they could see the photo as they're taking it.  You could ask on the mythbusters message board what they did exactly to accomplish that.  Good luck!