Minox B : Daniel Nielsen Photography

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Last Updated: February 4, 2004

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REVIEW: Minox B

By Daniel Nielsen

The tiny 9.5mm wide film this and other Minox subminiature cameras use is too small to reliably produce useable images.

That said, if you've just gotta have a Minox, this is the cheapest one to find. In 2001, you can find this most common Minox model for between $100 and $150 on eBay. I bought mine in a Grand Rapids, Michigan, camera shop used for $60 in the late 1970s. I traded it in in the mid-1980s as partial payment for a repair on one of my Nikons; the Denver repair shop gave me $60 for it. That's good resale value, and if I'd held onto it, it would be worth twice that now. So you probably won't take a beating on a Minox if you buy at a reasonable price. The downside of Minox ownership for me was that in the seven or eight years I owned it, I took a total of three rolls of film with it. That's a direct result of the tiny negative size. It's awfully small for working with in a home darkroom. Any scratch or defect is hugely obvious even in a wallet-size print, as is grain, even if you're using 25ASA fine grain film.

The upside, and one of the major attractions of the Minox subminiature camera line, is the camera's tiny physical size. You literally can carry it anywhere and never notice the weight or bulk. The B model is the size and shape of a pack of chewing gum and weighs only slightly more. Because you can carry it all the time, you may capture an image or two you otherwise wouldn't simply because you always have it handy.

Now, about the B model in particular.

The B was the first Minox subminiature to include a light meter. It was added to one end of the earlier model, the Minox IIIs, so is about an inch longer than earlier Minoxes. I don't know much about the later electronic Minoxes, so comments on this page refer only to the early models.

All vintage Minoxes, including the III, B and C, have a fixed aperture at f3.5. Exposure is adjusted only by varying the shutter speed. Shutter speeds range from Bulb to 1/1000 of a second and can be set to any intermediate speed. The III models have no meter, so you either use an external meter or guess the exposure using the sunny 16 rule. The B meter is a selenium cell, which does not require a battery. You aim the camera at the subject, push a tiny button on the meter, then let go of the button, which locks the meter needle. You then adjust the shutter speed until a dial coupled to it lines up with the meter needle. It's not instant, but the system works quite well. If it's too complicated for you, you might prefer the long C model (at least another inch longer than the B), which had a completely electronic automatic shutter (which required a tiny battery). But because of their age, many C models by now aren't working anymore, and they have no provision for setting the shutter manually. The B, which are even older, are themselves reaching the tail end of the life of their selenium cells. But when that dies, the B can be used with guess exposure or an external meter.

Besides its remarkably small size, another feature of the Minox that made it stand out from the myriad subminiatures manufactured over the years was it's scale focusing range that extended down to eight inches. That close focusing made the camera useful for copying documents - just what spies needed. The large focusing range also helps in general use, especially since the aperture is fixed at f3.5. At close distances, the standard measuring chain featured little beads at various focusing distances. The chain attaches to one end of the camera; you frame your picture through the parallax-corrected viewfinder, measure with the chain, then set the appropriate distance on the distance scale.

I used my Minox on a motorcycle tour to Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula and on a backpacking trip across the Grand Canyon. The vibration of my Honda CL350 didn't phase it, nor did being carried in my jeans pocket (inside its fitted leather case) on the 25-mile desert hike. When closed, the camera is well sealed against dust. It really is a marvel of engineering. Actually, I suspect that is why a variation of the Minox is still being made while other subminiatures dropped off the face of the earth decades ago: It's just a cool-looking and cool-feeling little bit of design and construction. It snicks delightfully when you push-pull the two halves of the body to advance the film and cock the shutter. It feels precise and solid in your hand. The controls work smoothly.

But the negative, a mere 8mm by 11mm, is smaller than the nail on your little finger, and that's just too small. I carried it around off and on, but found I took hardly any pictures because I knew the quality of the final prints would be extremely limited. In the end, it just wasn't worth bothering with. The camera ended up stashed in my sock drawer for years.

Film is still available from Minox via mail order. To be fair, today's films are finer-grained than they were back when I had my Minox, so image quality probably is slightly better these days. But, in my opinion, not enough to make a worthwhile difference.

I can't recommend that anyone buy any 8x11 Minox if your goal is to take pictures. Collectors are another thing. A classic Minox is perfect candidate for sitting on a display shelf. But if you want to take photographs, you'd be much better off with a small 35mm point-and-shoot, say an Olympus Stylus Epic. It's as large as four or five Minoxes combined, but it's still pocketable, and the image quality will be at least a dozen times better. If you actually need tiny camera size, look at the inexpensive "pencam" digital cameras - you can find them on eBay or at WalMart. They're generally only one megapixel resolution, but that's probably on par with the 8x11 Minox negative. And they cost only $40-$70, and you don't need to buy any film.