I've run two rolls through my Rollei 35AF so far.
Thank you very much for your very quick reply to my question!
It's very pretty in black, I like the autofocus (I don't mind the loudness!), and it feels nice to hold - the teeny display is a nice feature that works well. Auto exposure AND manual exposure are so great to have on a small camera. The flash is powerful and useful.
Sounds all very good.
Compared to the original Rollei 35, the build quality will absolutely disappoint everyone, I think.
Understandable. But to be fair to Mint, we should not forget that the original Rollei 35 was built by one of the leading camera manufacturers in its time with decades of experience.
Whereas Mint is a very young company which was founded (in 2009?) as a camera shop. They then at first started also repairing cameras, then updating / improving Polaroid SX-70 cameras, then started producing camera accessoires and finally the production of instant film cameras.
That in such a very short time span they have been able to design and produce a camera like this Rollei 35 AF, is very impressive in my opinion.
And therefore I would not expect that the build quality is on par with the original Rollei 35. There was a short video published by them showing the assembly line of the Rollei 35 AF. About 15 people working there. It is a very small workshop-like operation. About 50 cameras per day are currently produced.
The shutter button is awful (soft, but not in a good way, and locks down after an exposure until the film is wound on, which turns out to be just annoying),
But that the shutter button stays down until the film is wound on serves also as an indicator for film winding.
rewinding film is awful (you feel like you're breaking the camera).
That should certainly be improved.
The camera doesn't sit flat because the rewinder can't sit flush. On mine, the self timer isn't working (I'll email them shortly!!). The camera back flexes too much closing the camera after loading film, because the metal is very thin and the tolerances very narrow.
Definitely more points for improvements.
Not having a filter thread seems a really odd omission for no great reason.
Agreed. Especially with this camera which offers the user much more creative control than most other compact AF cameras.
I haven't developed the two rolls of Ferrania P33 I've exposed in it, so I can't comment about actual picture quality yet...
An update with your results would be highly appreciated. Thanks again!
www.analogforevermagazine.com
:
