Minox photography for absolute beginners

[Donald Qualls]

I admit, that was outrageous luck.

Yeah. I used up all my luck in that category back in the oughties.

 

[tjwspm]

Yeah. I used up all my luck in that category back in the oughties.

You have to give luck a chance.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Here is an addendum on the subject of costs for Minox beginners. Today I received a Minox EC that I bought privately online last week.

Price for the complete set: 10 Euros

Camera and electronic flash look like new and work perfectly (not yet film tested). The three films (36 exposures) are still unopened (1993). The operating instructions for the camera and flash are complete and appear to have never been read.

View attachment 378443

I admit, that was outrageous luck.

That is a heck of a deal. And you got the version with the flash which is the one to have. FYI they made a case for the flash and the camera together if you can find one. It makes for a tidy little package. I have one but I don't remember where I got it. Possible it came with the EC. My EC was the package version that could be bought through an airline.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

I got into Minox in a big way before the pandemic so I got a bit lucky. I wish I would have started using the Minox someone gave me back in the mid 90s. It was always one of those, I'll get around to it one of these days kind of things. I have a lot of Minoxxxia now though. 7 cameras, bunch of cassettes, most of the accoutrement including a Minox enlarger I snagged for $25. I even have a developing tank I've never used if anyone is interested.

I still want to pick up a III though. It would be a hoot to have an AX but they are just too pricey for my blood. Of the 7 I have, 3 are not working right now (two Cs and a B). I'd say I use the Minox C about 90% of the time. I like the idea of the EC but lack of focus isn't a good feature. I've been thinking about having DAG adjust mine for infinity and just use it for landscapes. I think overall the ones to get are the B and the LX. The LX I think is the nicest one. Really feels like a fine watch. I prefer the Complan lens though, so I end up using an early C but it seems those are fraught with issues being the early ones. I might switch back to the Bs though since I have a bunch of 50 exposure cassettes now. I lost track of how many cassettes I have to be honest.

The biggest buggaboo with the Minox is the shutter blades. When I get a new one these days I immediately take it apart and clean the blades. I've learned the hard way several times. Nothing worse than that crunch feeling.... Glad we can still get new blades, and improved ones at that. They are fun cameras.

 

[tjwspm]

FYI they made a case for the flash and the camera together if you can find one. It makes for a tidy little package. I have one but I don't remember where I got it. Possible it came with the EC. My EC was the package version that could be bought through an airline.

Can you please show us a photo? I've never seen it.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Can you please show us a photo? I've never seen it.

 

[xkaes]

For anyone thinking of getting into SUB-35mm Minox photography, remember that there were LOTS of cameras other than Minox that used the tiny Minox cassette. Even some of the cameras with the Minox label were not made by Minox. These alternatives are sometimes hard to find, and typically have different features.

http://www.subclub.org/shop/minlike.htm

 

[tjwspm]

View attachment 378611

Thank you. This combi case seems to be very rare. I have never seen it offered anywhere. Congratulations on this piece.

 

[aw614]

I found this Minox EC at a thrift store last year, came with a flash bulb attachment and flash unit. Need to use it more as I enjoyed it shooting the one roll of film I had.

 

[tjwspm]

At the time, the Minox EC was advertised by the manufacturer as an entry-level model into the Minox world. Don't let that fool you. In my experience, the image quality is at least as good - if not better - than the more expensive models.

As far as I know, the lens used was the Minox four-element lens from the LX, but stopped down from 3.5 to 5.6. I took the following two pictures with the Minox EC:

As far as the slower lens of the Minox EC is concerned, the following must be taken into account. If you consider that in the 1950s Minox films usually had a speed of 25 to 50 ASA, then reducing the initial aperture from 3.5 to 5.6 with the EC around 1980 was not a problem. Because at that time, 100 ASA was common for Minox films.

 

[Minox]

A very good idea to publicize this, for many it'll make somewhat easier the entry into the Minox photography world. My own article on the matter, if I may:

https://www.35mmc.com/19/04/2023/so-you-want-to-get-into-minox-photography-by-julian-tanse/

 

[xkaes]

A very good idea to publicize this, for many it'll make somewhat easier the entry into the Minox photography world. My own article on the matter, if I may:

https://www.35mmc.com/19/04/2023/so-you-want-to-get-into-minox-photography-by-julian-tanse/

Thanks for mentioning your article. I'll certainly add a link in the SUBCLUB.

One question I have is about the film format comparisons in the article. It lists the 16mm format as 10.26 x 7.49 -- that's even smaller than Minox. The most popular still 16mm format is 10 x 14mm, but there are others, such as the Minolta Super 16 at 12 x 17mm, Kiev Vega with a 13 x 17mm image, Goertz with a 10 x 10mm. The list goes on.

 

[Minox]

My mistake. Thank you for pointing it to me!

 

[perkeleellinen]

Thinking about metering. The B is best for thinking about the light in the scene because the meter needle invariably sits between two shutter speeds, this invites an artistic decision to over or under expose. I like this very much. The EC requires no thought about metering but neither does the LX as there is no meter readout. In fact, I find the manual shutter dial useless in this camera as it would only work with an external meter and I don't carry a meter four times larger than my camera.

That said, it is perfectly possible to use your own estimation rather than a meter. The fixed aperture lends itself so well to this as theres only one variable (shutter speed). This from an old cassette of APX25:

I find those suggestions a bit optimistic (North American market?). For me, using ASA100 film in Northern Europe I can use the settings here for ASA25 film.

 

[tjwspm]

Thinking about metering. The B is best for thinking about the light in the scene because the meter needle invariably sits between two shutter speeds, this invites an artistic decision to over or under expose. I like this very much. The EC requires no thought about metering but neither does the LX as there is no meter readout. In fact, I find the manual shutter dial useless in this camera as it would only work with an external meter and I don't carry a meter four times larger than my camera.

That said, it is perfectly possible to use your own estimation rather than a meter. The fixed aperture lends itself so well to this as theres only one variable (shutter speed). This from an old cassette of APX25:

View attachment 378848

I find those suggestions a bit optimistic (North American market?). For me, using ASA100 film in Northern Europe I can use the settings here for ASA25 film.

Very interesting consideration. Today's films have a very large exposure latitude compared to the 1950s. When I shoot outside with my Minox A IIIs on “normal” days, it almost always comes down to 1/100 of a second at 100 ASA.

Some time ago I made a table with example situations and Minox exposure times for 100 ASA. That's about right for me here (in Central Europe):

LW: Light value
Last column: underlined values mean whole seconds, all others mean fractions of a second.

I calculated the times with the help of this page: https://www.elmar-baumann.de/fotografie/formeln/belichtung.html

 

[Sergey Ko]

Great job!
The only item -I think the best Minox for the beginners is Minox-C.
Correct about digitising with camera, not scanner. Or you need some top Nikon/Minolta scanner.
I used Sony A900 full frame 24Mpx with special macro lens with bellows.
I shoot a lot with my Minox AIII, Minox B & BL, Minox C & CLX. The model I have not are AX & Riga
Enjoy my Minox Album on Fickr:

Minox 8x11

The photos by my lovely Minox C & Minox IIIS cameras

www.flickr.com

 

[Donald Qualls]

I recently saw a video on YouTube where the poster digitized a Minox negative using a microscope. Not a wide field 20x kind, but the biological sort that starts at about 100x and up like a kite from there. His issues were the tiny FOV of the microscope objective (took something like 110 expose-and-move iterations to cover the negative) and extremely shallow depth of focus.

Still, I've thought it might be possible to get useful scans from this size negative using the Minox film viewer combined with an adapter for mounting a smart phone to a microscope or telescope eyepiece. Both my Pixel 7 and my partner's iPhone 6 do a fine job through a microscope with one of these adapters (takes expensive specialized equipment to do any better), and the size of the eyepiece is close to that of the film viewer. If I could get the negative to fill even half of my Pixel 7's field of view, I'd get image size comparable with 35 mm on my V850. Sadly, there seems to be no way to turn off the "auto-magic" in the regular camera app, but I haven't looked much at film scanning apps for Android.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

For proof scanning I scan the whole roll with a flatbed. the results are good enough for the purpose. I’ve also tried camera scanning with a bellows and a reversed 30 mm Minolta enlarging lens. That was better of course but too much work to get it set up. These days if I want a better scan than the flatbed, which isn’t often, I put the neg in a 35mm anti-newton slide mount I modified and scan it in my Nikon Coolscan. I still prefer printing the negs in the darkroom though, so the flatbed scan is good enough. If I ever shoot color in the Minox I’d probably prefer camera scans.

 

[qqphot]

I scan my minox film by wet mounting on glass and photographing it with a macro lens anyway, but even so the minox negative is a very small part of the center of the frame. Using a 60MP camera lets you get away with it, but I've thought about the Laowa ultra macro which if it's optically good enough should be fantastic for this. I just have no feel for if it's actually a good macro lens or a gimmick.

BTW regarding metering -- I've had a few Minox Bs pass through my hands and I've never seen one where the meter actually worked accurately. Plenty will deflect the needle in response to light but mostly not usefully given the degradation due to age. I know it's possible because I have a Retina IIIc with a selenium meter that's actually accurate. Has anyone run into a B with a usable meter?

The meter in my current B doesn't even deflect the needle when the "release" button is held, and I can't figure out how to get the mechanism out of the housing to debug.

 

[xkaes]

For "contact prints" of my submini negatives -- not just Minox -- I cut and place the entire roll in a glass 4x5" negative carrier. Then I can enlarge the whole roll onto an 8x10" sheet.

You can do the same sort of thing with a 120-sized enlarger too.

 

[xkaes]

That said, it is perfectly possible to use your own estimation rather than a meter. The fixed aperture lends itself so well to this as theres only one variable (shutter speed). This from an old cassette of APX25:

For most Minox-type cameras with manual control, exposure is easy with a small adjustment to the f-16 rule. Just multiply the ISO by 20 and that's the shutter speed for a SUNNY situation.

ISO 25 = 25 x 20 = 1/500 SUNNY - adjust as the light dims:
Cloudy w dull shadows = 1/250
Cloudy Bright no shadows = 1/125
Overcast/shade = 1/60
etc.

ISO 100 = 100 x 20 = 1/2000 SUNNY -- use a filter

Since I normally shoot B&W at 1/2 the ISO, I adjust for that too.

 

[tjwspm]

BTW regarding metering -- I've had a few Minox Bs pass through my hands and I've never seen one where the meter actually worked accurately. Plenty will deflect the needle in response to light but mostly not usefully given the degradation due to age. I know it's possible because I have a Retina IIIc with a selenium meter that's actually accurate. Has anyone run into a B with a usable meter?

I have several Minox B, where the needle of the light meter still deflects. I would like to test their light meters, but how?

The measurement should be reproducible, i.e. with artificial lighting. But how do I determine the reference value? Unfortunately, I don't have a good handheld light meter. At best, I could use my old but still functioning Canon A1 or my digital travel camera as a comparison.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to carry out such a test?

 

[tjwspm]

I recently saw a video on YouTube where the poster digitized a Minox negative using a microscope. Not a wide field 20x kind, but the biological sort that starts at about 100x and up like a kite from there. His issues were the tiny FOV of the microscope objective (took something like 110 expose-and-move iterations to cover the negative) and extremely shallow depth of focus.

Interesting! Can you give us the link to the video?

 

[tjwspm]

For most Minox-type cameras with manual control, exposure is easy with a small adjustment to the f-16 rule. Just multiply the ISO by 20 and that's the shutter speed for a SUNNY situation.

ISO 25 = 25 x 20 = 1/500 SUNNY 7 adjust as the light dims:
Cloudy w dull shadows = 1/250
Cloudy Bright no shadows = 1/125
Overcast/shade = 1/60
etc.

ISO 100 = 100 x 20 = 1/2000 SUNNY -- use a filter

Since I normally shoot B&W at 1/2 the ISO, I adjust for that too.

So simple! With your permission, I will integrate it into my description.

Minox for beginners

Shooting with a Minox requires sporting ambition, because there is probably no more difficult way to take photos. And none cooler.

moments-of-now.com

By the way, am I right in thinking that the light value for the Sunny 16 rule is LV 15?

 

[perkeleellinen]

Enjoy my Minox Album on Fickr:

These are great!