Uncle Jonesy's Cameras: Holiday Happenings and Mishaps with the Minolta Hi-Matic AF-2

The days leading up to Thanksgiving Day all the way through Old Christmas (January 6) are among my favorite times of the year. I love them so much that I usually have a major withdrawal in the cold and wet season of January and February in southeast Tennessee. Perhaps this is why I do all I can to preserve the feelings of love, joy and peace that, to me, are at the heart of the holiday season. And for me, the best way to do this is to take a lot of photographs.

This season was no different. I shot some Polaroid film in my SX-70 SONAR One Step, and when I ran out of that, I loaded up my go to 35mm autofocus point and shoot camera, the Minolta Hi-matic AF-2 with some color negative film (more on that later). The Hi-Matic AF-2 is, in my opinion, the best 35mm point and shoot camera Minolta ever made. Its 38mm f2.8 lens is very sharp, and the moderate wide angle focal length gives it a lot of versatility. It's great for photographing groups of people, like one would do at holiday gatherings, but it also would be perfect for travel and street photography. and although I have never done this, one could put a yellow, orange, or red filter on the 46mm filter mount for black and white photography.

For indoor shooting, I have found the built-in flash to be powerful yet effective in getting a good exposure, even in a medium large room. Just be prepared for extreme reactions from subjects who have grown up in the camera phone era and have never experience a "real" photo flash. The flash recharges quickly if you have two fresh AA batteries installed. And who doesn't love a camera that uses AA batteries!

The autofocus is easy to use; just press the shutter halfway. The autofocus system is accurate, as long as you focus on your subject. For example, if you are photography a group of people, then choose someone and focus on that person. Do not merely aim and shoot, because the camera will focus on whatever is in the little rectangle in the center of the viewfinder. If it is the background, it will be in focus, but your subject(s) may not be. This is a good practice to follow with any autofocus camera.

I really like this camera for a reason that may seem strange to you: it's lack of automation. For a start, there is no motorized film advance. You advance the film with a lever. Why do I like this? It makes the camera quiet. You could use this camera at an outdoor wedding and not be noticed. Furthermore, the film is rewound in the traditional way of pressing a button on the bottom of the camera and and turning a rewind crank. No one will ever shh at you when you are changing film. Another valuable lack of automation is the ISO setting, which is set by turning a ring around the lens. Why do I like this? I can change the ISO for individual shots for exposure compensation as dictated by certain lighting situations. For example, if I am shooting 400 ISO film, and I want to photograph a backlit scene, I could increase the exposure by turning the ISO ring from 400 to 200 (plus one stop) or even 100 (plus two stops). Just remember to reset the ISO to the correct setting after making the shot.

This manually set ISO "feature" also will be appreciated by that group of film photographers who like to intentionally over expose the entire roll of their color negative film because they like the way the colors "pop." Although I never do this, I will under expose a roll of film and then give it extra development, a process known as "pushing." When you push film, you make the film behave as if it were a faster (more sensitive to light, and therefore a higher ISO) film, albeit with some tradeoffs in contrast and grain. Deliberately over exposing a roll of film and giving it less development time is know as "pulling," and it useful for reducing contrast and grain as well as allowing for the use of slower shutter speeds, as in the case of photographing waterfalls, for example.

There is a disadvantage to having to manually set the ISO on a camera, of course, and that's it becomes possible to set it to the wrong ISO. This shouldn't happen, of course, but it did with the roll of film I shot during our Christmas gatherings. I made the mistake simply because I thought I was loading one color negative film (Kodak ColorPlus 200) when in fact I was loading another (Kodak Pro Image 100). I only discovered the mistake when I rewound the roll and removed the cassette from the camera, and at first I was really mad at myself. However, after I calmed down I realized that the mistake could be corrected by performing a push development, that is, extending the development time. The directions that accompany Cinestill's C-41 development kit give push and pull times, so it was easy to make the development adjustment. When I hung the negatives up to dry, I was happy to see images on the film, and when I scanned them, I was impressed. Pro Image 100 pushes to 200 very nicely, as you can see below.