Good Things Come in Small Boxes...

This little camera was dropped off by the courier this morning, and to my delight it not only looks almost unused, but it seems to work. It was accompanied by all the original bits and pieces, all in similarly great condition. It's a Minox 35 EL.

 

Minox 35 EL

 

 

I got it at a very cheap price as the seller made rather a song and dance about the batteries for it being the old mercury cells and therefore no longer available, but a little searching around on my part suggested it would be happy with the modern equivalent silver or alkaline replacements. And so it proved to be; I made a makeshift adapter and loaded 4x1.5v button cells in place of the 5.6v PX27 mercury battery it was designed for, and it works just fine, though I altered the ISO rating by half a stop to compensate for the slight increase in voltage, to bring the exposures into line with my Weston Euromaster. I ran a short length of Arista EDU 100, and I'm impressed by the consistency of the exposures and the quality of the 35mm Color-Minotar f/2.8 lens which lives up to it's very high reputation. I'll post a sample below.

 

I'll get around to doing a full post on the Minox 35EL camera in the near future, but I'd be interested to read of any other forum member's experience with, and opinion of, this diminutive camera.

 

Late in the Day

 

A neat little handful of camera (along with other Minox 35's) Somewhere I have an issue of Pop Photo that compares the MInox with the Olympus XA and its competition from Ricoh and Vivitar. The Ricoh even has the same fold down door as the Minox.

Thanks for posting, Rick. I look forward to seeing more images.

I love the packaging on these - the fag packet camera! I have had a couple over the years but never got around to using them because of the battery issue. I should clearly have been more persistent. Wasn't there a Soviet copy of the Minox too? Apart from the XA series, another camera with a similar concept is the Chinon Bellami:

 

More from Uttoxeter

I loved mine, best pocket camera I ever had. Only issues I had with it were a slight tendency to scratch film (although not really a problem) and of course no rangefinder. It is particularly nice with the leather case (which I see you have). AE exposure worked well: even with K64.

I had one for about a year...was impressed by the resulting pictures (Tri-X).

Nice find, Rick. I haven't used the EL, though I used to have a Minox 35ML as well as a Kiev 35A (a close copy of the EL) and have posted photos taken with both from time to time. I thought the Minoxes were nicely-designed cameras, with a few shortcomings.

 

The 35ML was one of the best pocket 35's in terms of features, including programmed mode and exposure lock. I acquired mine with a dead shutter and managed to get it working again, though it was never 100% reliable.

 

The Color-Minotar lens is indeed excellent, though it seems a bit flare-prone, and the Minox push-on rubber lens hoods are fiddly to use. I'd actually give the edge to the Kiev-Korsar lens, which is multicoated. The Rollei 35's also had the advantage of using standard filters and hoods.

 

PX27 alkaline batteries are available online, and Kiev included a battery adapter sleeve which held 4 LR43 batteries. The 35ML took the more common PX28.

I have a Minox 35ML

 

http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/5247609-md.jpg

 

Taken at Angkor Wat with Minox 35ML

This sounds like a possible way to get more use out of the battery Kludge that I built for my semi-working, quasi-reliable example of a Yashica Electro. I use a PX28, but I think that may literally be four button cells with a wrapper around them anyway. Meanwhile it appears that your Minox lens does not fall too short of the legendary Yashica one, but in a much more compact and light package for those days when one doesn't need f/1.7. Hmmmmm...

--Dave

Thanks for the responses! The Angor Wat image certainly demonstrates the quality of the Color-Minotar lens, MTC. I'd noticed a few running scratches on the trial film, Robin, so I've polished up the guides and will hope for a better outcome in the future. Thank you Dave, Mike, Dave E, John and SCL for your comments.

Couldn't tell from the image, but how many aperture blades does the Minox 35 EL have? I know the XA only has four. An edge that the Minox holds over the XA is the minimal light fall-off at edges compared to the XA. That's why when I shoot with my XA or XA-2 I try to compose in such a way to make the fall-off less noticeable. Curiously, the fixed focus XA-1 (selenium powered) seems to have less than the other XA models.

Only two blades, Mike, that create an unusual diamond-shaped aperture. At some stage I'll try to get dome shots that demonstrate the bokeh.

Great results from that little camera. I used once a Kiev 35 which was the Soviet answer to the Minox 35 - it was an excellent travel camera while it worked.

 

My tech says that the Minox 35 is unreliable, but the lens is a great one.

They were not unreliable when new, but like many solely electronic cameras of that era, they are not easy to keep running today. I doubt they can be easily repaired today either. I guess that is a point in the Rollei 35's favor, but I never found that camera as much fun as the Minox.

Andy Warhol's favorite camera was Minox EL

 

Lomography - Minox 35 EL and Andy Warhol's 'Exposures'

andy warhol exposures - Google Search:

Even smaller, Minox AX gold camera in mahogany box

 

 

Pure mechanical camera

 

Brass body ,electroplated with 999 gold

 

Dimension 80 x 28 x 16mm

 

 

 

weight 127g

 

Lens 1:3.5 F=15mm 4 elements three group lens

 

Shutter B,1,2,5 to 1000

 

Image size 8x11mm

Edited May 29, 2017 by MTC Photography

Saw an exhibit of Warhol's photographs years ago in Las Cruces. Many were with a Pen half frame camera. Andy like it camera because he was a cheapskate and could get twice as many shots on one roll of film.

 

I had one of those too Rick. Sadly, mine broke about two minutes after putting batteries in it, and I had to send it back to the seller, so I never even got one shot out of mine.

Edited June 6, 2017 by steve_mareno|1

"Saw an exhibit of Warhol's photographs years ago in Las Cruces. Many were with a Pen half frame camera. Andy like it camera because he was a cheapskate and could get twice as many shots on one roll of film.

 

I had one of those too Rick. Sadly, mine broke about two minutes after putting batteries in it, and I had to send it back to the seller, so I never even got one shot out of mine"

 

 

Yes, I love the stuff Warhol did with the Minox. This example has shutter issues, and I lose about 1 frame in 5, but that seems to be about par for the course.

Edited June 6, 2017 by rick_drawbridge