The Minox Is Vexing Me

Just before I left for the Tech Summit in San Jose last month, Apple Cider Slim sent me a Minox PL (and a Rollei flash!) that he'd picked up at a garage sale a while back and never got around to using. It was an incredibly generous gesture that I still haven't gotten around to thanking him properly for (that would be via actual hard-copy thank-you note). Sadly, neither the Minox nor I seem to be equal to this gesture.

I'm having trouble getting the hang of focusing the thing... and with an 89.4% failure rate on the part of the shutter over two rolls of 36 exposure film (one Portra 400NC and one Tri-X 400), I can't get enough feedback on what worked at what didn't. In the case of that first roll, virtually nothing worked (except the one throw-away frame I shot at the beginning of the roll in order to advance the film); every other frame was blank, despite the film having wound properly. I tested the shutter with the back of the camera off, so I could see it opening, but I'd noticed when shooting the Portra that the shutter button was kinda squishy.

With the Tri-X roll, I noticed the same squishiness for most of the roll, but occasionally I managed to press the button in such a way that I felt more resistance. This probably accounts for the fact that I got 7 exposures on this second roll. (If you're doing the math, I actually shot 38 frames on each roll, since I'm a stingy film-advancer when loading.) Everything I got was incredibly dark, and 5 out of the 7 shots were out of focus. The remaining two weren't technically out of focus, but they weren't very sharp, either. Drat.

a very dark beaner
I like the perspective, but but I'm not fond of the muddiness. The exposure has been adjusted +0.77, the brightness +150, and the contrast -34 in Lightroom.

I think if I'm going to have another go with this camera, I'll need to get the shutter release looked at by a repair shop. For the time being, however, it's been benched.

Posted by Lori in photography at 10:50 PM on March 12, 2008