About a year ago, I had the idea of running film through a couple of borrowed 110 cameras and possibly writing up a review. This seems to have ended up as a mini odyssey around the world of subminiature photography, taking in such notable cameras as the Canon 110 ED, Minox 110S, Rollei A110 and a selection of 16 mm cameras. Recommendations from commenters on previous articles led me to the Pentax Auto 110. It isn’t a bad place to have ended up.
I’d heard other people refer to the Rollei A110 as the best 110 camera ever produced, but I was expecting a certain amount of that to be hyperbole. Then I got hold of one. It isn’t a slam dunk, but now I understand.
Canon introduced two 110 cameras in 1975, the 110E, which had an f/2.7 zone focusing lens, and the Canon 110ED, which sported a 26mm f/2.0 lens (maybe the fastest on a 110 camera), speeds from 8 seconds to 1/500, a rangefinder, proper hot shoe and a system for imprinting dates on the negative surface.
The Minox 110s was introduced in 1974. The internet tells me that this camera was not produced by Minox at all, but by Balda in Germany, who also were also involved in manufacture of the 35EL for Minox. The body is made of Makrolon, which is supposed to be very robust, lightweight and with a glass-like transparency(!) In the case of the 110s, the Makrolon is coloured black and is (hopefully) not transparent. It is though, a bit ‘plasticky’.
I must admit that the main photo and the title of the article are a little joke. The PF Micro 110 camera is near the simplest thing ever invented and the 3M-110 film cassette expired in 1987. I will explain how this adventure has developed.
