Hong Kong’s MiNT Camera has published another update on its 35mm film camera project, giving some insight into the design ethos behind the camera.
MiNT Camera’s Gary Ho published an update on 2 June with details of a six-point brief given to the design team at the start of the project – as well as an image which hints that a working prototype may already have been completed.
The six points detailed in the blog post update are:
- Simplicity is sophistication
- Intuitive user experience
- No need for instruction manuals:
- The challenge of two user worlds:
- Embracing skeuomorphism
- Beautiful pictures (of course):
Ho said in relation to the first point: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Stripping away unnecessary complexities creates an elegant and intuitive tool that doesn’t overwhelm users with excessive buttons and settings.”
The new 35mm camera project was unveiled by MiNT – best known for its range of Instant film cameras – late last year.
Ho has published seven updates on the progress of the camera’s development, though this is the first to go into the camera’s design ethos.
In the fourth point, Ho said: “Designing for both experienced film photographers and newcomers presents a significant challenge. The design team must bridge the gap by providing a smooth transition from traditional film cameras to this modern-day product.”
MiNT’s in-development camera has been likened to Rollei’s famous Rollei 35 compact camera given some of the prototype pictures released with the blog posts. MiNT has gone into details on technical specifications – such as whether the camera will have autofocus – but further details may come with future blog posts.
The latest blog post comes with one intriguing detail under point six – an image of a girl giving a peace sign to the camera. The image looks to be 35mm format – do MiNT already have a working prototype capable of taking pictures?
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
