Minox 35 ML
When you're known for something, it can be difficult to change perceptions. As much as Michael Jordan wanted to be a baseball player, few people are going to rush to the mall for a pair of Jordan's baseball cleats. If you're the Minox camera company, you're going to be known for small, silver spy cameras regardless of how many sets of binoculars you produce. Along the way, though, Minox combined the thing for which they're known (very small cameras), with the most popular commercial film stock, 35mm. The resulting cameras of this combination were small, folding cameras that were easy to use and gave larger cameras a good run for their money.
While the first Minox 35s were released in the mid 1970s, the Minox 35 ML began its 10 year production run in 1985. The little electronic camera has two shooting modes: full program and aperture priority. Despite not having a shutter speed that can be directly controlled by the user, the camera's viewfinder shows the shutter speed so photographers can control the speed with the camera's aperture ring. Given that the camera's fastest shutter speed is 1/500th of second, with faster film in lots of light, there can be a problem with over-exposures. Just for these situations, Minox provides neutral density filters to help users shoot their favorite film stocks no matter what the conditions.
The focus on the 35 ML is set by the focus scale on the 35mm f/2.8 lens. The aperture numbers are bright and easy to read, so with the exception of shooting with very wide open apertures or for photographing subjects between 3 and 6 feet away, focusing, even without the aid of a rangefinder or split image assist, is really not a problem.
There are some who look at the Minox 35 ML as lacking in features, but it's just as correct to see it as being free from overly complicated design. If that reminds you of another camera, perhaps it's the subminiature Minox cameras such as the Minox B and Minox C. It turns out that, unlike basketball and baseball, the characteristics that made Minox famous in the first place can be transferred to a new format.
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