Comments on Leica Mini-zoom?

My dream has come true - I walked into a thrift store and found a boxed black Leica in almost new condition! Good news is that it was only $3.00. Bad news is that it is a plastic point and shoot, not an M4!

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Seriously, I know this is a Japanese made point and shoot. I ran a roll of film through it and everything seems to work perfectly. The camera makes a LOT of noise, though, which may or may not be normal, but it seems to work perfectly (so far).

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But, are there any comments on the 35-70 "Elmar" zoom? The 4x6 inch prints seem to be excellent but I haven't done a critical examination of the negatives.

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One excellent feature about this camera is the red dot! It seems to be identical to that on the M6. And, I bought the dot for about 1/1000 the price of getting a dot by buying an M6.

I had a Minizoom for a year or two. It takes very good photos, the

lens and exposure system are excellent for a point and shoot. A

friend of mine was so enamored of the photos it took that she

begged for it... Oh well, another one lost. {grin}

I owned a Mini Zoom for three years. The lens was excellent, although

I found it could be a little flare-prone with backlit subjects.

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Points I didn't like:

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* with such a narrow maximum aperture you can forget limited DoF e.g.

for portraits

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* a bit too big for a P&S

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* no manual contol of focus, aperture or shutter speed

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* the use of a single button to select various modes, especially

since the camera would forget what mode I was using when I switched

it off

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* having to use the same central spot in the viewfinder for both

focus and exposure, then holding the shutter release halfway to lock

both while recomposing; what happens if the subject to be in focus is

not 18% grey?

* it was easy to knock the on/off switch with the camera in its

pouch, resulting in the lens straining to extend itself in the

confines of the pouch

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* keeping the camera in its leather pouch all the time induced fungus

in the lens, which meant that the camera had to be junked - a lesson

for the future!

Thomas,

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I have owned a MINI ZOOM since Sept.94 and for ages blamed myself for

out of focus images interspersed with superb ones. I finally sent it

to Leica who replaced the electronics, now every image is sharp and

IMO the lens is excellent. March 1994 Australian Camera

concluded "You'd have to pay dearly to obtain an SLR package with

comparable performance" I can't argue with that.

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I mainly use an M6 and occasionally a Nikon F80 (N80 in the US). But

for the convenience of point and shoot record shots I use the little

MINI a lot now that it's fixed and many of the results are better

than the Nikon Zooms (ED variety). I wear it on my belt in its

leather pouch and hardly know it's there.

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I'll now heed Ray's warning about storing it in the leather pouch

even though mine has survived for 7 years without the dreaded

mushrooms.

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In case you don't have the information, the lens is seven elements

(in six groups). It's a traditional design employing conventionally

cut an polished glass elements with multi coating.

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Use it and the results will speak for themselves.

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You have found a bargain and if your experience is anything like mine

you have found a new little friend.

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I agree that the Mini-Zoom is a

rather large point and shoot. I've also noticed the annoying single

control for options. But, it does seem to take great pictures.

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My only two reservations, which have not been mentioned, are: 1) The

camera seems to make a lot of noise. I've never heard such an

interesting sequence of sounds from any camera. Maybe it is on the

verge of dying but for now it works great. 2) I tended to cut off

heads of people on the first roll. This isn't a parallax problem,

though. It seems that sometimes I get flare in the viewfinder and

don't see the white frameline. So, I tend to think that there is a

greater field of view than there really is.

Tom,

don't worry because of the terrible sounds your mini zoom produces:

that's just the way it is! Especially zooming sounds quite horribly.

Nevertheless, sharpness and brilliance of the pictures this camera is

able to produce are really astonishing. I also have a Rollei 35S, a

Minox 35 GT and I also tried a Yashica T5. None of them can rival the

Leica mini zoom, even if it has a zoom lens.