It’s easy to get confused when it comes to choosing a compact cameras – there’s just so many of them.
Compacts of all stripes – from bare-bones basic to the smart and sophisticated – poured out the doors of camera factories during the last few decades of the 20th Century. Some were pure point-and-shoots with fixed apertures, shutter speeds and others were full of creative features that made gave them almost as much versatility as a mid-range SLR.
Many of these cameras were forgotten during film’s sharp decline and the doldrums which followed. However, a new generation of film fans is much less sniffy about these cameras and helping rescue models that might have once languished on camera shop shelves and bargain bins.
The renewed interest in film over the past half-decade or so has also led to the return of some very simple compact cameras. At the moment, many of these models are little more sophisticated than disposables but are designed to be used again and again.
But at least one legacy camera manufacturer – Ricoh – is some way along designing a new compact film camera for the 21st Century under their Pentax brand name. While Ricoh won’t confirm release dates or many firm technical details, they have said the intention is to release a manual-wind-on camera.
Meanwhile MiNT camera, the Hong Kong-based brand which has built a number of retro instant cameras, has announced a compact camera project influenced by one of the most iconic compact cameras of the Cold War – the Rollei 35. MiNT Camera has been updating those interested with blow-by-blow accounts of the camera’s progress, with an expected release date (possibly via crowdfunding) as early as 2024.
But while Ricoh and MiNT Camera pore over their blueprints, there are plenty of compact cameras ready and waiting to be used. A handful – the likes of the Contax T2 and Nikon 35Ti championed by celebrities and influencers alike – command ever-insane prices as demand for the remaining usable examples climbs ever-higher. For the price of some of these models, you could buy another camera that will give you similar results, buy a roll of film and get it processed every week for the next year, and still have enough money at the end of it to treat yourself to a weekend break.
For this guide, Kosmo Foto is ignoring these hype machines – and offering instead a guide to the other, more affordable 35mm compact cameras you might find out there, including the new simple models being produced today. Rather than overhyping a handful of certain models, we’re going to divide compact cameras into eight different types and talk about the pros and cons of each type (certain cameras are mentioned for each type, but these aren’t must-haves, merely illustrative.)
This guide is intended to help those who might be approaching film cameras for the first time and are considering a compact camera purchase – but hopefully others further along with their film photography will find it useful aswell.
TYPE 1 – MODERN SIMPLE CAMERAS
The new interest in film photography has sparked something of an arms race among brands to release a simple film camera for newbies. Lomography arguably kicked this off with the release of their Simple Use cameras in 2017, marketing them as a “reusable disposable” with all of the carefree ease-of-use of a disposable camera and none of the guilt about adding to the world’s discarded-plastic mountain.
Since the Simple Use cameras, arrived, you can see very similar cameras under brand names such as Kodak, Harman (the makers of Ilford and Kentmere films), Moment, Vibe, Candid and Dubblefilm. Bear in mind all of these cameras are essentially the same model, differentiated usually by colour and some minor cosmetic changes. Some have flash, others may shoot half-frame rather than a full frame of film.
The Dubblefilm SHOW is one such example. Aside from a flash which needs a battery, everything in this camera is completely manual. You wind the film on manually, click the shutter and rewind the film manually when the film is finished. The SHOW lets you choose from two different apertures, but the camera will always shoot on the same speed.
These are about as basic as cameras get in the modern age. They will get you a picture either in very bright conditions outside, or in a bar or party if you’re one with a built-in flash. Outside of this, getting a properly exposed shot can be a gamble.
The all-plastic construction makes these cameras very portable – they weigh little more than a couple of rolls of film. They have just enough features to get you the picture that you want but within fairly tight parameters. The light plastic construction means these cameras won’t take the knocks like a more robust older model.
Most of them have a plastic lens rather than one made of glass. Though the SHOW needs a battery, this is only used to power the flash, which has to be turned on to fire.
These cameras can be found for as little as £20, though some are sold as sets with accessories like a roll of film or a case and cost a little more.
Pros: Easy to use. Take modern batteries (if they need batteries). Weigh very little. Wide choice of styles from various sellers.
Cons: Limited shutter speeds and apertures. Fixed focus. Plastic lens. Not very robust.
Example models: Harman Reusable, Lomography Simple Use, Kodak M35, Dubblefilm SHOW, Ilford Sprite
TYPE 2 – LEGACY SIMPLE COMPACTS
The “reusable disposable” cameras being made today aren’t anything new in terms of camera development. As plastic moulding became cheaper and global salaries increased, camera manufacturers fell over themselves to come up with cheap 35mm cameras for those on tight budgets.
Like the modern “reusable disposable” many of these cameras have fixed focus, fixed shutter speeds and often fixed apertures. Some have an inbuilt battery-powered flash and some have a simple hot shoe which you can attach a small flashgun to. If you’re planning to shoot on a sunny day, then load a roll of 100 or 200-ISO colour film and snap away.
These cameras were designed for fuss-free shooting and are the perfect camera for situations where the lighting is consistent but you wouldn’t want to bring along a more expensive camera. If the camera doesn’t come with an inbuilt flash or the means to attach one, you’re restricted to shooting in bright sunlight.
Compared to today, where construction seems to be restricted to a few factories in China, these cameras were made in myriad places and in all sorts of designs. Some offered a little more creative control than the bog-standard simple cameras. Take the Hanimex 35HS, for instance. This camera still has fixed focus and fixed shutter speed but offers a range of apertures based on lighting conditions or using flash, a definite step up from the standard.
The sheer size of the market 30 or 40 years ago meant camera makers tried to fill all sorts of niches with simple cameras. There were underwater models in waterproof cases, multi-lensed models that shot on four, six or eight lenses and “panoramic models” which cropped the top and bottom of each frame to produce fake panoramic images on a frame of 35mm film.
Even with the rising prices for working film cameras, so many of these cameras were made that you’re almost guaranteed to find them at car boot sales and charity shops for next to nothing.
Pros: Easy to use. Usually cheaper than current models. Far wider variety than contemporary simple cameras.
Cons: Limited features. Varying levels of quality control.
Example models: Hanimex 35HS, Vivitar Wide and Slim, Halina Vision 500, Le Clic 170, Concord C180
TYPE 3 – ZONE FOCUS COMPACTS
The simplest compact cameras were fixed focus, while more expensive models increasingly went for autofocus from the 1980s onwards. But there was a middle ground: zone focus.
What is zone focus? It’s a way of focusing which features pre-determined distance zones. These are usually marked around the lens. You choose a zone and take a picture, and whatever’s in the right zone should be in focus. For example, on the Cosina CX-2, the distance zones are for just under one metre, 1.5 metres, three metres and infinity. If you want to take a picture of a far-off mountain on holiday, then you would put the camera on to the infinity setting.
The Cosina CX-2 is a nice example of how zone focusing could be used on a very small, pocketable camera in the 1980s. The CX-2 doesn’t have a motorised film advance system or autofocus so it only needs small button-cell batteries to powers its shutter and exposure system.
These cameras do require you to be aware of how far away you are from your subject. It might sound complicated at first, but with practice it’s not too much of a problem. Some of these cameras became really popular, including the Soviet-made Lomo LC-A, which was a copy of the Cosina CX-2 and became a cult compact in the 1990s and the 2000s.
If you’re shooting an automatic exposure zone focus camera like this in sunny weather, you don’t have to worry too much about which zone you’ve selected. Cameras of this kind choose both the shutter speeds and the right aperture to expose the shot properly. And in sunny weather it will choose a narrow aperture such as f/11 – which will put most of the scene in acceptable focus.
There are some zone or scale-focusing cameras which come with a heftier price tag, but even these remain affordable. Minox made a whole series of these cameras from the 1970s. The 1970s, small enough to pop in a pocket. The Minox 35 cameras all came with fantastic lenses and were capable of taking wonderful photos.
Another similar camera is the Voigtlander Vito C which was made in West Germany in the early 1980s. It’s very small, very lightweight, and has icons in the viewfinder which show which focusing zone is currently chosen – which makes it harder to miss focus.
Cameras like this have a real advantage over many early 1980s autofocus cameras in that they’re very quiet – on a busy street or market you can easily miss the shutter sound.
The Vito C and Minoxes have a drawbridge style door like an old folding camera from decades before; this keeps the lens free from dust and scratches, and won’t fall off in your bag.
Pros: Small and quiet. Usually only needs battery for battery/exposure system.
Cons: Zone focusing can need some practice.
Example models: Cosina CX-2, LOMO LC-A, Ricoh 35ZF, Olympus XA2, Voigtlander Vito C, Minox 35 series, Agfa Optima series
TYPE 4 – EARLY AUTOFOCUS
In the 1980s, the long-awaited promise of autofocus finally arrived. While camera manufacturers worked out how to automatically focus large, cumbersome SLR zoom lenses, compacts provided the perfect vehicle for an automatic focusing system.
Most early autofocus cameras had both an auto-focus lens and automatic film winding. The autofocus system in 1980s compacts is light years away from the kind of whisper-quiet focusing we’re used to now. Some cameras might have only two, three or four focusing zones, meaning plenty of opportunities for out-of-focus pictures.
The need for power – lots of it – and a motorised film advance system meant many of these cameras feel decidedly chunky. And then there’s the noise. Some of these early AF compacts make quite the racket – making candid street photography all but impossible.
This quickly became a highly and keenly fought market. All the major camera manufacturers were quick to bring out models, some of which are still well regarded.
You can even find within this genre some autofocus compacts that still have manual wind-on. transport. A good example is the Minolta AF-C, which feels like a slightly more space age LOMO LC-A. Like many of these early cameras, the autofocus is limited to a handful of zones, but the camera is a lot quieter than many of its contemporaries.
Pros: Usually robust construction. Accurate exposures. Cheap.
Cons: Loud. Slow and limited autofocus. Cameras are often chunky and heavy.
Example models: Pentax Sport, Olympus Trip AF, Olympus AF-1, Minolta AF-C
TYPE 5 – EARLY ADVANCED AUTOFOCUS
Amid the very earliest autofocus models were a handful of models which were aimed at more experienced photographers who might normally have a more advanced camera with them.
There are two cameras worth mentioning here as good examples of what to expect in a camera of this class. The first is the Pentax PC35AF-M, and the second is the Canon AF35M (otherwise known as the original Sure Shot).
The Pentax has a sliding cover, which protects the lens when the camera’s not in use. It has an integral flash that pops up when activated. It has a backlight function which can help if you’re shooting a subject with strong light behind them.
There’s a level of creative control on cameras like this that you may not find on the more basic autofocus compacts. You can also choose the ISO so you can push-process film, for instance, and the flash can be over-ridden.
Both the Sure Shot and the PC35AF-M are also loud – very loud cameras; it would take some time before film advance motors could be made smaller and quieter. Neither are what you could call particularly compact, either.
The weight is in part because of the amount of metal still in the body, which is of course as much of a bonus as it is a penalty.
Cameras in this class had better lenses; both the Sure Shot and the PC35AF-M have f/ 2.8 lenses with excellent sharpness and colour rendition. The Pentax’s lens has no lens than five different elements, which helps achieve fantastic sharpness.
Another Canon model in this genre, the AF35ML has a 40/1.9 lens, perfect for shooting in more challenging light.
With cameras like these you’ve got some benefits with the autofocus and the automation, but it’s still a photographer’s camera, and with a degree of control over the results too. And with a price of between £50-£100, they’re not outrageously priced.
Pros: Robust construction. More control over camera settings. Better lenses.
Cons: Heavier and bulkier. Noisy operation. Autofocus still limited.
Example models: Canon AF35M, Pentax PC35AF-M, Canon AF35ML, Minolta AF-Z
TYPE 6 – AUTOFOCUS ZOOM CAMERAS
Through the late 1980s into the 1990s, the compact camera market was revolutionised thanks to one new feature: autofocus zoom lenses.
Camera manufacturers had managed to squeeze zoom lenses into a small enough package, and the the zoom autofocus arms race began in earnest.
The great thing about these cameras is they really are an all-in-one package. If you just wanted to take one camera on a trip then this was the perfect choice. No longer did you need an SLR with bulky zoom lenses.
But the zoom lenses were – like all zoom lenses – a compromise. They were slow (in terms of widest aperture) and obviously didn’t have the optical quality of the fixed focal length lenses. They need a lot of light at the longer focal lengths.
At the longer end of the zoom you might be limited to something like, a minimum aperture of f/9.5 or sometimes f/ 11. This will be fine for landscapes or far-off buildings but isn’t going to get you wonderful portraits.
The good news is that the cameras tend to be quieter to shoot; the film advance motors are smaller and less noisy, though there some of the zooms can be pretty loud.
An example of this kind of camera is the Yashica Microtec Zoom 90, typical of what you would have been able to buy in the 1990s. This is a really pocketable camera with both a zoom lens and an integral flash.
It has a lens which zooms from 38mm – perfect for street photography – to 90mm, which you can use to isolate a subject from further away. Some of these cameras also have a macro function, meaning you can
But if you wanted to just have one camera that you take on a long weekend away or take on a trip to the beach and you want to get as many different kinds of shots as possible, then these kind of cameras can be a great choice.
Pros: A choice of focal lengths in a small package. Quieter than early models
Cons: Lenses can be slow to focus. Limited aperture range, especially at longer focal lengths. Better for landscapes and holiday shots than more creative photography.
Example models: Yashica Microtec Zoom 90, Canon Sure Shot Tele Max, Samsung Vega 140, Canon Sure Shot Zoom 70W, Olympus Mju Zoom, Pentax Espio 738G
TYPE 7 – CLASSIC POINT AND SHOOTS
Probably the most popular class of camera at the moment is the fixed-lens autofocus camera – which for this article I’ll call “the classic point and shoot”.
These cameras started really coming into their own in the early 1990s. “Fixed focal length’ means that the camera shoots at one focal length (such as 35mm) but the cameras are still autofocus. And technology had moved quickly; an autofocus compact of the early 1990s tended to be smaller, lighter and much quieter than one from a decade before.
So why opt for a camera with just the one focal length instead of a zoom? The lenses tend to be much better for a start. are sharp, have good coatings to prevent flare, great colour rendition and contrast. They were a designed to be a natural camera to take with you when travelling– small enough to stuff in a pocket. If you wanted to zoom – well, you could zoom with your feet.
The Canon Sure Shot Max is a typical camera of this class from the early 1990s. It’s a point-and-shoot with a 35mm lens, integral flash and autofocus. Hundreds of similar cameras were made around this time, from big-name brands such as Nikon and Olympus and smaller players including Ricoh, Samsung and Panasonic. You don’t have to be spending Contax T2 prices to get a camera capable of taking excellent photos.
This kind of compact camera is probably the pinnacle of point-and-shoot photography. But there is a caveat. By this time, compact camera relied more and more on electronics – electronics that are now 30-odd years old. Spare parts may sometimes only come from a donor camera.
Pros: Easy to use. Excellent lenses. Quiet. Accurate exposure systems.
Cons: All-electronic operation. Difficulty finding spare parts for many models. Repairs can be complicated.
Example models: Canon Sure Shot Max, Olympus AF-10 Super, Ricoh FF-700, Pentax Espio Mini, Konica A4,
TYPE 8 – HIGH-CONCEPT COMPACTS
“High-concept compact cameras”. You might also know them as “dad cams”; the ultra-chunky, not-very-compact 1990s compact cameras that turned out to be surprisingly good picture-takers.
These tend to have a lot of features that are crammed into their outsized body. These cameras were a galaxy away from the early autofocus compacts of the early 1980s. They usually included several exposure modes (such as portrait or macro), multiple-exposure modes, macro abilities and more sophisticated flash settings – aswell as a more impressive zoom lens.
An example of this kind of under-rated camera is the Canon Sure Shot Zoom XL, a supersized compact released in 1989. The Sure Shot Zoom XL has a 39-80 zoom lens of impressive quality – it was designed to be as good as the Canon FD lenses of the early 1980s. It can take multiple exposure and has different flash settings (and a no-flash mode, too).
These kind of cameras screamed “serious photography tool”, even if sometimes they looked nothing like a serious camera. Just look at the next example, the Minolta Riva Zoom 105i, which looks like something that might have tried to invade Earth in a B-movie.
The Minolta, like the Canon, has a powerful zoom lens (this one goes up to 105mm). It has an integral flash with different modes. This was not aimed at a beginner but someone with photographic experience who didn’t mind delving into a manual.
This class of camera was pretty much ignored in the decade after digital, but they’re starting to be reappraised now. Certainly, a lot of the models I’ve tested for my online camera shop Cameraburo are excellent – so good that some of them have become permanent residents in my collection.
These “high-concept” cameras go for anything from £50 to £100. You could spend less and go for a simpler model, but this is a kind of cameras that you can grow into a little more and allow you a little bit more creative control. They’re not a replacement for a manual SLR where you’ll really learn the fundamentals of photography, but they can be an excellent all-rounder.
Pros: Robust. Lots of creative control. Excellent lenses. Accurate exposure system. Variable flash modes.
Cons: Bigger and heavier. May have complicated menu system. May be more difficult to use without a manual.
Example models: Canon Sure Zoom XL, Minolta Riva Zoom 1051, Pentax Zoom 105
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.
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