Minox Sub miniature

[Roger Hicks]

Maybe 30 years ago, an old friend was talking about Minoxes (Minoces?) and how she'd always wanted one. I said, "I have one I never use. You can have it for what I paid for it: £25". She was delighted, even though I warned her that it really was unlikely she'd use it.

Last week she and her husband came to lunch: we'd not seen them in a dozen years, because they live in Bristol and since 2002 we've lived in France. They gave us the Minox back! So I now own two submins (Minox and Minolta 16) and have another on loan (Tessina). Not sure what to do...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Godfrey]

Um, make photos with them? What else do you do with a camera?

The plural of Minox is "Minoxen" according to my German friend. But of course, he might be pulling my leg... 🙂

Seriously, since I have/had all three:

- The Tessina is a beautiful little example of the watchmaker's art but is a bit of a pain to shoot with. Hard to focus with the reflex viewfinder, best used with scale focus, and the film transport is fragile. You can reload it's miniature film cassette with standard 35mm film.

One of my Tessina photos from 2002 is attached.

- The Minolta 16 works well, if you can get cassettes that work (and the Kiev copy cassettes often don't). Minolta shot themselves in the foot with their processing tank design which required that you break the cassette bridge to load the film into the daylight loading tank ... that's why there are so few original cassettes around. The negative is large enough to handle easily, and if you get a good cassette or two, the cassettes can be reloaded in a moment for pennies per load. The major downside of the Minolta 16 is that it has only a fixed focus lens, so there are some limitations on how good an image it will make outside of a relatively narrow range.

- The Minox 8x11 cameras are the best made and the best worked out as a system of all the subminiature cameras. They have an outstanding, super high quality lens. The OEM film is still available, albeit high priced. Cassettes are fairly plentiful and, with a decent slitter, can be reloaded for pennies a roll. The daylight loading tank works beautifully, and they're available for sale at pretty reasonable prices. The negative is teensy but, as you can see, can make amazingly good photographs, with precision focusing from 8 inches to infinity.

So take one of them out and make some photos with it!

G

Maybe 30 years ago, an old friend was talking about Minoxes (Minoces?) and how she'd always wanted one. I said, "I have one I never use. You can have it for what I paid for it: £25". She was delighted, even though I warned her that it really was unlikely she'd use it.

Last week she and her husband came to lunch: we'd not seen them in a dozen years, because they live in Bristol and since 2002 we've lived in France. They gave us the Minox back! So I now own two submins (Minox and Minolta 16) and have another on loan (Tessina). Not sure what to do...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Um, make photos with them? What else do you do with a camera?

The plural of Minox is "Minoxen" according to my German friend. But of course, he might be pulling my leg... 🙂

Seriously, since I have/had all three:

- The Tessina is a beautiful little example of the watchmaker's art but is a bit of a pain to shoot with. Hard to focus with the reflex viewfinder, best used with scale focus, and the film transport is fragile. You can reload it's miniature film cassette with standard 35mm film.

One of my Tessina photos from 2002 is attached.

- The Minolta 16 works well, if you can get cassettes that work (and the Kiev copy cassettes often don't). Minolta shot themselves in the foot with their processing tank design which required that you break the cassette bridge to load the film into the daylight loading tank ... that's why there are so few original cassettes around. The negative is large enough to handle easily, and if you get a good cassette or two, the cassettes can be reloaded in a moment for pennies per load. The major downside of the Minolta 16 is that it has only a fixed focus lens, so there are some limitations on how good an image it will make outside of a relatively narrow range.

- The Minox 8x11 cameras are the best made and the best worked out as a system of all the subminiature cameras. They have an outstanding, super high quality lens. The OEM film is still available, albeit high priced. Cassettes are fairly plentiful and, with a decent slitter, can be reloaded for pennies a roll. The daylight loading tank works beautifully, and they're available for sale at pretty reasonable prices. The negative is teensy but, as you can see, can make amazingly good photographs, with precision focusing from 8 inches to infinity.

So take one of them out and make some photos with it!

G

Dear Godfrey,

Get rid of the bloody things!

I find the Tessina a MUCH better camera to use than a Minox, and several orders of magnitude easier to process. I bought a new Minolta 16-II maybe 50 years ago in the PX in Bermuda; sold it several years later; and (foolishly) replaced it, though I can't remember why. I've processed quite a few Minolta (and other 16mm) pics over the years, without breaking the cassettes: I still have two or three.

Likewise my Minox is my second: my first fell out of a pocket onto a friend's lawn, where he found it rusted solid a few weeks later. And the Tessina has no cassette, unlike the one I bought maybe 45 years ago. The Tessina is the only one that remotely tempts me to try it again.

Nowadays I'm much more into trying to get good pictures than into playing with refractory cameras.

Cheers,

R.

 

[zuiko85]

Nowadays I'm much more into trying to get good pictures than into playing with refractory cameras.

Cheers,

R.

Long ago I realized I’m no artist and any good photos I made would be a happy accident.
I’m a tinkerer with cameras, which includes my 16mm and 9.2mm cameras. So, for me that is enough reason to use them. I like jewel like mechanical instruments and have always been fascinated by optics. So naturally I gravitate toward cameras since they are the epitome of what interests me.

 

[Doug]

...The major downside of the Minolta 16 is that it has only a fixed focus lens, so there are some limitations on how good an image it will make outside of a relatively narrow range.

G

True enough about the fixed focus... In 1963-64 I had a Minolta 16-II with 22mm f/2.8 fixed focus, though I recall there were two square slip-on closeup lenses in the kit.

Doug

 

[zuiko85]

True enough about the fixed focus... In 1963-64 I had a Minolta 16-II with 22mm f/2.8 fixed focus, though I recall there were two square slip-on closeup lenses in the kit.

Doug

There is also a ‘0’ slip on lens that is a minus .25 diopter. This brings the focus to 10 meters which for a 22mm lens is close enough to infinity as makes no difference. Often when I’m shooting with the 16II then I just leave the infinity focus lens on.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Long ago I realized I’m no artist and any good photos I made would be a happy accident.
I’m a tinkerer with cameras, which includes my 16mm and 9.2mm cameras. So, for me that is enough reason to use them. I like jewel like mechanical instruments and have always been fascinated by optics. So naturally I gravitate toward cameras since they are the epitome of what interests me.

Fair enough. But I lost interest in that years ago. No moral judgement: just my choice, in the same way that tinkering is your choice. The Tessina is (or can be) quite fun, but the fixed focus on the *Minox is a bit wearing and I can't be arsed to try to develop and print a 50 cm clock-spring, which is what a Minox film feels like to me.

*Correction of error. I meant Minolta. I have both a Minolta 16-II and a Minox B.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Godfrey]

True enough about the fixed focus... In 1963-64 I had a Minolta 16-II with 22mm f/2.8 fixed focus, though I recall there were two square slip-on closeup lenses in the kit.

There is also a ‘0’ slip on lens that is a minus .25 diopter. This brings the focus to 10 meters which for a 22mm lens is close enough to infinity as makes no difference. Often when I’m shooting with the 16II then I just leave the infinity focus lens on.

Yes, I have all three, and the B&W filter set as well. (I still have four or five Minolta 16 cameras and several hundred feet of 16mm film for spooling! It's frightening to think what I have i the closet behind me...! 🙂). The accessory lenses help quite a lot, but still don't quite produce the same quality as the Minox lens.

I obtained a number of very nice photos with the Minolta 16 and 16 II cameras. The first adjustable camera I bought for myself was a Minolta 16-P that I bought with my summer job money when I was about nine ... adjustable in that I could adjust the aperture and shutter speed (two settings on the latter, woo hoo!). I made a lot of fun snapshots with it.

 

[Godfrey]

Speaking of good photographs, I'm very pleased with these three from 1997 and the Minox B using APX25 film. They're scanned at ~1.75:1 resolution with a Leica CL + Focusing Bellows-R + Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm lens. No editing other than the usual inversion and a bit of spotting.

The folks are two of my motobuddies, still good friends today after all these years. Daffy is sadly long gone.

Jack - Mount Hamilton 1997

Jack's Bike "Daffy Ducati" - Mount Hamilton 1997

Joanne - Mount Hamilton 1997​

The Minoxen are always a joy because they take up so little room you could always have one in your pocket, available and ready. Nowadays, a smartphone with its high resolution digital camera do the same job with much more resolution and image quality, but there's a joy in the world of subminiature film photographs, in getting good results from silly sized, teensy scraps of film, that is gone.

enjoy!
G

 

[FrozenInTime]

A bit of inspiration there Godfrey, I must try scanning the old negatives with a modern high resolution macro setup.

Various Minox cameras lived in my pockets for almost 10 years before the iphone era.
It was a major technical effort to make good prints, not something to recommend to anyone unless they were into darkroom work already.

Old scan pair circa 2000 : at one time I would have known which camera took it - the rebates all looked different ( LX, EC or AX ? )

 

[phofseth]

Unlike mobile phones, , they never ran out of battery power (before the Minox C, LX), and even with the new-fangled automatic the battery was quite long lived.


p.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Lovely pics Godfrey. I know you said Daffy is long gone but I hope the Ducati isn't. One of my biggest regrets is selling my 1999 Ducati Monster. What a wonderful bike.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Alfasud]

Umayyad Mosque, Damascus

Umayyad Mosque, Damascus

This is a good example of the quality possable with the Minox. The film was Portra 160, although I shot it at ASA 100.

 

[Alfasud]

Same film and settings as my previous post

 

[Alfasud]

Great Pyramid, Giza

Great Pyramid, Giza

 

[jpchopper]

Minox isn't a camera, it's an addiction.


Shots: kids at ice cream shop, MinoxTLX, Ektachrome 100

Gunner's view behind cannon on USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") Minox EC, Provia 100

Epic robot battle: Minox BL, Minocolor 400 expired. *I think*.

Aerochrome color IR shot: Minox C

Aerochrome color IR shot: Minox C

The Minox C and a 2X yellow filter I used for the Aerochrome shots

Sharpie: Self explanatory

Stairwell, Minox AIIIs, Minopan 25.

Boats in the harbor, Minox AIIIs, Minopan 25.

These little cameras are like crack. Always seem to need another... I'm scanning with a smartphone and an attached macro lens. Don't have the right kind of scanner just yet

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[jpchopper]

Alfasud Great shots

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[jpchopper]

A bit of inspiration there Godfrey, I must try scanning the old negatives with a modern high resolution macro setup.



Various Minox cameras lived in my pockets for almost 10 years before the iphone era.

It was a major technical effort to make good prints, not something to recommend to anyone unless they were into darkroom work already.



Old scan pair circa 2000 : at one time I would have known which camera took it - the rebates all looked different ( LX, EC or AX ? )

That one at least, was an LX (the little extra "tab" on the end of the negative frame is only on LX and variants (TLX, CLX, Aviator, etc)

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[Pál_K]

With my Minox B I made some B&W portraits of co-workers which, at a 4x6" print size, looked as if they were made with a good 35mm camera. That was with Delta 100 film.

A bit addicting: I started with a IIIs, then added others, got some books. Got the tripod.

I thought I had a B, two IIIs's, and two III's, but then a serial number check on one III showed 24xxx, so it's a II - or maybe a "II/III", where the five element lens was changed to four elements.

 

[Pál_K]

Duplicate - sorry.