Our club were having a meeting featuring “Spy” cameras. The most famous spy camera is the Minox. I didn’t have one, but a camera store I frequent offered to loan me one for the meeting.*
The Minox B was made from 1958 to 1971. McKeowan’s price guide to antique and classic cameras (2001-2002) lists the Gold plated version at $1800-2500, the black version at $350-500 and the Chrome version being very common and hence sells for $120-180.
The Minox B has 302 parts contained in a 92 gram camera.
I didn’t have much chance to research the Minox before the meeting. It was mentioned at the meeting you can download an entire book on subminature photography from the Butkus website listed on our “other resources” section of our web site. Once you get looking for information you can find a load of articles and blogs about the Minox in particular.
Another member had an extensive selection of Minox accessories, as well as the same Minox B I had brought.
You can get a unique tripod a little larger than a pencil that has the three legs formed from the original tube with two additional tubes threaded inside the first.
There was a binocular attachment to adapt the Minox to one eyepiece (you use the other eyepiece to sight with).
Lets take a look at every side and view of the Minox I took.
The camera comes in a leather case with a chain attached to one end. Note the small brass rings on the cain. They correspond with the first four distances you can set on the focus button; 8-inches, 10-inches, one foot, one foot six-inches and the end of the chain is two feet.
The end of the chain has a leather button flap you can insert a button into. It makes a lot of sense to physically attach something that cost hundred’s of dollars to yourself.
This is a top view of the camera. From the left you have the light-meter, the shutter speed dial (T, B, 1-1000 sec), shutter button, frame counter (counts 1-50) and the distance dial. At the far right end there is the bayonet attachment for the chain. The far left end has a PC flash connection.
In this tighter view of the controls you can just see the projecting bezel at the left end that is the PC-flash connection. The meter generally is broken, but for those that aren’t setting it for the ASA speed involves setting the meter’s dial and then the shutter speed dial to 1000 and opening and closing the camera. The pulling the camera open and closed advances the film and the frame counter by one and cocks the shutter.
All the dials are adjusted with your thumb while pinching the camera between the thumb and fingers of the same hand.
A really cute trick of the Minox is the distance scale. It has a bar with a central dot. The dot is the distance mark, but the bar indicates the depth of field! Since the camera only has one aperture—wide open—what you have to work with is fixed.
Do not dispare! There is a small red dot between the infinity and six-feet marks. Set the camera to that and most objects from eight-feet to infinity will be in focus.
The other side of the camera has a fine tooth to facilitate your grip during shooting, as well as during dial adjustments.
With the camera closed the front of the lens shows, “COMPLAN 1:3.5 f=15mm” when the camera shutter is not cocked.
The shutter indicates it is cocked by showing a small circle with a horizontal line leading off to one side on the front of the blades (viewed from the front of the camera). Above the viewfinder there is a knurled bar that you use to move the yellow filter and neutral density filter into place over the lens. These filters are supposed to be retracted when you (push—pull) advance the film.
This is the bottom view of the camera in the midst of that push—pull film advance/shutter cocking. Note the very small recessed crescent at the right inside case. You snaggle that with a finger nail and pull the camera film chamber open.
This is a view of the pass-through PC flash connection that manages to connect through the meter.
These are the camera body’s connections that mate with the prior image’s PC connections. Note that gear that is tucked in the grove near the shutter dial. The gear changes the arrow on the meter as you change the shutter speeds. Since the Minox does not have any aperture control—it is always shooting wide open at f/3.5—you have to use shutter speeds to set exposure.
This is the film chamber partially open. Loading the film cartridge is a tad tricky. You have to pull the sections completely apart to open the film chamber fully, but then you have to close the chamber a bit to get the film gate retracted so the film can slip in to place. There is an advance gear that sometimes doesn’t quite mesh with the cartridge gear either. None of this is scary once you have learned how it all works, as the procedure is taken a step at a time in the instructions. All the same, after not using the camera for a while you might want to refer to the instructions to refresh your memory.
*Thanks to Richard at Grove Camera and Pawn, Spruce Grove for the loan of the Minox B
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