MINOX B

I don't think there is a camera that is as detailed and beautiful as this one. It is an ultra-compact camera that appears in old spy movies. The beauty and precision of the finish surpasses Rollei and Leica.
INOX was born in Latvia, one of the three Baltic countries in 1938, and production was moved to West Germany after the war. The MINOX B was made in West Germany and was released in 1958. Although it is an ultra-compact camera, it has a slow shutter speed to 1/1000th of a second. The viewfinder uses a bright frame and automatically corrects for parallax. There is no aperture on the lens, and an ND filter is built in so that it is always used open (F3.5).
It has a built-in selenium-type exposure meter, and the ASA sensitivity can be set from 25 to 400 with a follow-up needle. When using the ND filter, the sensitivity of the exposure meter is automatically switched, so there is no need to think about the troublesome magnification when shooting.
Feeding the film and charging the shutter are performed simultaneously by a series of operations for inserting and removing the case. When the case is pushed in, it advances one film, and when it is pulled out, the shutter is charged. When the case is pushed in, the lens and viewfinder are hidden, and the shutter is locked to prevent misuse.
Furthermore, with such a small size, the aberration due to the curvature of the lens is large.
It is amazing to see such a sophisticated mechanism in such a small body.
The design concept is also very unique. Minox does not have a built-in diaphragm or distance system. However, because the focal length of the lens is extremely short, the depth of field is extremely deep. If you set it to 4M, you can focus from 2M to infinity, and shooting with your eyes is sufficient. The disadvantage of omitting the rangefinder and aperture for ultra-compactness is eliminated by the depth of field achieved by the miniaturization. Also, being able to shoot with an open aperture means that a high-speed shutter can be used, which is advantageous for hand-held shooting. In this way, the design concept of the camera is also very unique, clear and rational.
The image is also very good. The graininess is unavoidable because the film is small, but the lens is an excellent lens with ultra-high resolution and extreme sharpness.
Despite its unique mechanism and design concept, it has such a complete world. I don't think there has ever been a camera with such an excellent design since the appearance of the Minox.
When I take a picture of Tokyo with this camera, I like the rough grain of the film and the somewhat nostalgic image.