MiNT Camera will release its Rollei 35AF compact film camera by the end of September, founder Gary Ho has told Kosmo Foto.
The camera – based on the iconic Rollei 35 series of compact cameras – is the Hong Kong camera producer’s first 35mm camera.
In the week Pentax released the Pentax 17 half-frame camera, Ho revealed retired Pentax engineers had helped MiNT Camera with the design of the Rollei 35AF’s lens.
MiNT Camera had recently confirmed that the camera would be available imminently and encouraged customers to sign up for the waitlist for pre-orders on its site.
Ho told Kosmo Foto: “One thing people have been debating, is there manual control in the camera? The answer is yes. No manual focus, but there’s manual aperture and manual shutter speed, and even ISO can be manual.”
As previously mentioned on Kosmo Foto, the Rollei 35AF is an autofocus camera using Lidar technology for focusing. The Rollei 35AF will have a 35/2.8 lens with five elements, and use both metal and plastic in its construction. As Ho confirmed, aperture, shutter speed and ISO can all be set by the photographer.
The camera is expected to retail for between $600 and $800.
After the release of the half-frame and zone-focus Pentax 17, Ho posted on Instagram congratulating the Pentax team on their achievement. He said: “I think Pentax has done an amazing job. Although I haven’t tested the camera yet, I can tell that immense effort was poured into the project.
Developing film cameras is an exhausting job, at least for MiNT. To us, it is like climbing Mount Everest. To Pentax, with all the experience, capital, and infrastructure, I guess it is more like hopping over a hurdle on one leg.
“That being said, it is still a daunting task and I admire Pentax for their efforts to push analogue film photography for the coming decade. There is another thing about Pentax that I haven’t told anyone, which makes me particularly sentimental.
“The reason the Rollei 35AF lens is so fine, thanks to a couple of retired Pentax engineers. I swear I didn’t know about the Pentax project when I approached them, and neither did they. It was about three years ago. But nonetheless I learnt a lot from these retired Pentax engineers, and I’m very impressed by their professionalism.”
He told Kosmo Foto that the engineers were involved in making the Rollei 35AF’s lens. “Not sure how many retired Pentax engineers there are, but they were really helpful and professional. They were heavily involved in the old Pentax 35mm cameras in the heyday. So, it was kind of a piece of cake for them.”
Ho is currently in Japan and will appear on an Instagram Live on Japan Camera Hunter’s Instagram channel on Thursday at 10am JST (0200 BST/2100 Wednesday ET) where he will unveil more details about the camera.
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.
- Fujifilm bringing back colour film production – in China - 21/06/2024
- MiNT Camera’s Rollei 35AF to be released ‘by end of September’ - 19/06/2024
- Pentax 17: First impressions - 17/06/2024
