Minolta AF-C

Minolta got the AF-C small by taking things out, and the first thing to go was the flash. The Hi-Matic AF2 carries its strobe inside the body. The AF-C hands you a separate Electroflash C that screws onto the side and runs on its own pair of AA cells. Leave that unit at home and what remains is a 215 g autofocus camera measuring 105 by 67.5 by 42 mm, small enough to ride in a jacket pocket without a bulge. Minolta's own company history dates it to February 1983.

You turn it on by sliding the front shield open. That one shield covers the lens, the CdS cell and the autofocus windows, and closing it switches the camera off, so the glass gets covered every time the camera goes back in your pocket. Press the shutter halfway and the infrared autofocus sets a distance between 0.9 m and infinity, then holds it for as long as you keep the button down. Lock on a face at the edge of the frame, recompose, and press the rest of the way. The Seikosha ESF leaf shutter fires.

You set the film speed and nothing else. The program runs from 1/8 at f/2.8 up to 1/430 at f/17, roughly EV 6 to EV 17 at ISO 100, and picks both values on its own. Early black bodies have an ISO dial from 25 to 400. A later silver version goes up to ISO 1000, and that is the one to hunt for if you want film faster than ISO 400 in dim rooms. When the program is about to drop below 1/40, a red LED lights in the finder. Take it seriously. Handheld, the slow end of that program is a gamble, and the Electroflash C is the only fix the camera itself offers.

The lens is the reason to bother. Minolta built the 35mm f/2.8 from six elements in six groups, with a 63 degree angle of view, and Casual Photophile found it sharp and punchy all the way across the frame. The same review noted a slight tendency to flare. A low sun near the corner will cost you contrast, so shade the front with your hand or take a step to the side.

The real weakness is how little the program lets you change. There is no exposure compensation and no backlight button. Your only lever is the film speed dial, and setting it a stop below box speed is the crude fix for a backlit portrait (remember to set it back afterward). Indoors without the Electroflash C, the slow end of the program and that red LED show up sooner than you would like. For power it takes two CR1/3N lithium cells or four SR44 or LR44 buttons, and the button cells are easy to find today.

Its small size and simple controls make it an easy camera to carry for street and travel work without fretting over it. In fading light, take a reading with the Zone Light Meter app before you spend a frame. It will tell you whether the scene still sits inside the program's range for the film you loaded (EV 6 to EV 17 at ISO 100, reaching dimmer scenes as the film gets faster), or whether it is time to screw on the flash or load faster film.