Trouble Navigating the Konica Hexar AF

[GoldGrain]

Any Konica Hexar AF users out there?

I have recently acquired a Konica Hexar in seemingly outstanding condition for its age. After many years of keeping my eye on these cameras and doing my research on their functionality and reading some of the difficulties a few photographers have run into while using them, in addition to the number of users who have achieved amazing results, I decided to pull the trigger when the opportunity arose. Excited by the new edition I grabbed a handful of different rolls of film with varying ASA (2 Kodak Gold 200, 1 Ilford PANF Plus 50, and an Kodak E100 Slide Film roll) and shot like a madman. Admittedly relying way too much on the “P” setting and automatic features it would seem, as I received the 2 Rolls of Kodak Gold 200 and just about every frame with the exception of a few “lucky shots” is either out of focus, not incredibly sharp and almost always extremely contrasting with saturated colors and very deep blacks. (I’ll be uploading some examples here shortly.)

My question to anyone with some experience in using this camera, is in the “P” setting, from my understanding is you can choose a desired aperture and from there the camera will decide the shutter speed much like the “A” setting, or Aperture Priority, however if the camera so chooses it will also change the aperture in “P” to whatever it deems optimal. Therefore leaving the Aperture dial irrelevant while in this setting correct? I’m a bit fuzzy on how “Automatic” this setting actually is. The camera is functioning properly as it would seem and it selects the correct aperture/shutter/ISO and distance so I’m just guessing it’s user error. Anyone else have trouble with this camera? Not that it’s of any trouble to shoot manually usually, but this camera is not exactly made for ease of use in this field and In comparison to some friends photos from previous Hexar ownership and some samples online while shooting in “P” my photos look like they were shot through a pinhole potato at times.

P = Pinhole Potato?

 

[Oren Grad]

Some of the control behavior of the Hexar is a little obscure, so if you haven't already read the instruction manual, that's the place to start:

https://www.butkus.org/chinon/konica/konica_hexar/konica_hexar.htm

I've never used P mode on my Hexar, only A and M. Never had any trouble with exposure or focus not behaving as expected, so I'm afraid I don't have anything specific to my experience that I can draw on here.

 

[GoldGrain]

Thanks for the response Oren,

I’ve reviewed the manual a few times, it’s a bit generic. (Mr. Butkus is a savior to the camera community I will say.) Nothing describes in-depth the usage of the “P” setting. Just the general function. I’m planning on shooting a roll strictly on “A” to test the difference.

 

[MattKing]

Welcome to Photrio.
As I understand it, the P function will work as an aperture preferred automatic exposure function except if the light levels are either too high or too low, in which case the P function will over-ride the aperture you have set.
For example, if you have 800 ISO film loaded, it is a bright sunny day and you set the camera to f/2, the fastest shutter speed available would over-expose the shot - P will adjust the aperture to bring the exposure down to the correct level.
At the other extreme, if light levels are too low, P will over-ride the aperture setting if using it would result in a shutter speed too slow for hand holding.
Two questions:
1) could the blurred photos be due to camera shake resulting from too slow a shutter speed?
2) did you inadvertently over-ride the auto focus and set the focus manually, to the wrong setting?

 

[GoldGrain]

Thanks Matt,

Hmmm, I see. It was a very bright day in most instances... but I guess even in the incorrect shutter speed, it would have corrected for this but rather most look underexposed, or even blown out in the bright areas but black in the shadows. There are a few while we were in the woods taking photos of owls, which was midday at the time and the forest was illuminated well enough for any normal situation however these shots came out extremely dark and unrecognizable. This is something that in the P setting it should have taken the wheel on if under the incorrect aperture setting?

To answer your questions.

1) the blurry photos seem like focusing issues rather than motion blur. Any mid-ranged subject is slightly out of focus and anything beyond that becomes pretty nasty. There’s no real low light condition and photos were of stationary subjects.

2) as far as I know it’s a simple switch on top to choose between “P” “A” And “M” I do know all of the photos taken were on the “P” setting with a critical-shake speed of /30. I also know there are some unseen features and mechanics that go into the P mode... maybe I’m misinterpreting the controls based on the manual...


I just received my black and white roll back from the lab so I’m currently scanning this session To see the outcome and then I’ll upload a few examples.

I appreciate the feedback here!

 

[Lachlan Young]

Were your fingers over the AF sensor? The Hexar AF tends to default to infinity if it can't catch focus. It can also rather too easily let you release the shutter before it has fully caught focus.

Its metering is generally excellent, and in 'P' mode you can define the lower limit shutter speed before it alters aperture - ie if you ideally want to hold f8, you set that aperture, then the camera tries to hold that between 1/15 and 1/250, opening up or closing down the aperture as needed if you go outside that range. You can set the low speed limit in the 1/15-1/60 range.

 

[Oren Grad]

You should be able to get a sense of whether focus is way off even without film in the camera, because you can see what the focusing scales in the finder and on the lens barrel do when you focus on a target. Do the scales go to infinity when you focus on something distant?

About the Gold 200 results, have you looked at the negatives, or are you describing your results based just on prints?

 

[gijsbert]

I think P mode does take the aperture setting into consideration, it will use the set aperture if a matching shutter speed is available. If set at F/22 it will choose the highest aperture that fits the minimum shutter speed, ie prefer more depth of field using the lowest set shutter speed (default 1/60 I think, you can change this). And if set at F/2 it will choose the lowest aperture value that fits the top speed of 1/250, ie choose the lowest aperture (ie least depth of field, most bokeh) without blowing out the highlights. So you can maximize or minimize depth of field but still shoot automatically in P mode by choosing the extremes on the aperture dial.

I don't know how common it is, but my AF has electric contact issues in the shutter button. This can cause problems if using half press to set focus and then recompose, on pressing through to trip the shutter mine would sometimes refocus but now probably on a different subject and loose focus on the original subject.
It's not always obvious, if I remember correctly, to test set slow shutter speed, say 1/2 second (no film in camera preferably), half press on close focus subject, recompose to a far focus subject, press through and see if the barel moved before or after the shutter noise is done.
This is a video on how to repair/improve I did do this and although a bit scary it wasn't that difficult, and I did improve the shutter button action a lot but not perfect.

It's a very cool camera, but in the end I went for a Minolta CLE - not much bigger and more flexible. I still have the Hexar AF and I've been meaning to get a new battery and take the Hexar out for a spin. Given that 95% of the time I use the CLE with the 40mm lens so I'm not using the 'flexibility' that I thought I wanted all that much.