I’m incredibly lucky in my life in that I have the ability to walk to work every single day. I rather like this, not just because it saves me money on gas and is great exercise, but it also provides me with the opportunity to make some photographs while I’m traveling to and from the office. It’s nice getting a little creative before starting my day pushing paperwork and it does a lot for my mental well being.
One of the cameras I tend to carry with me often is the Minolta Hi-Matic AF2. I bought it at a thrift store over a decade ago not really expecting to use it much. Sometimes you just never know what is going to become important to you later in life.
The Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 is a bit of an odd bird when it comes to cameras. It’s a 35mm point and shoot camera that more or less does everything for you. Auto-focus. Auto-exposure. Auto-Flast. etc. etc. Strangely however it has a manual film advance lever and you set the film ISO manually on the lens. The camera also talks to you. Sort of. It makes a long continuous beep when you need to activate the flash and it makes short little beeps at you when you are trying to focus too close. If you can’t remember which beep is which, there is a handy cheat sheet printed on the back of the camera body.
Minolta was a weird camera company at times with some rather unconventional design ideas. The Hi-Matic AF2 is a good example of this.
The lens is a fixed 38mm at f/2.8. It’s decently sharp. Not the sharpest lens I’ve ever seen. Certainly not the worst.
So why do I like using this camera for street photography? Well, there are a couple of reasons:
First, the camera is actually fairly large for a point and shoot 35mm camera. Most people these days are clamoring for tiny 35mm point and shoot cameras that one can fit in their shirt pocket. There is nothing wrong with this, but I often find tiny cameras like this annoying to use. Tiny viewfinders combined with tiny buttons can make for a frustrating experience at times.
The Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 isn’t going to fit in your pocket. But it is light weight and is easy to throw into a backpack. Which is something I have with me anyway when I’m on my way to work along with a laptop, my day planner, and a host of other daily tools. The viewfinder is big and easy to look through and thanks to the manual wind lever, the camera is mercifully free of any loud film advance motors when you are trying to not be noticed.
Perhaps more importantly, and easily my favorite aspect of the Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 is the fact that the lens is threaded for a filter. Even better, the sensor for the auto exposure sits behind the filter thread. That means it is easy to mount color filters to the camera and you don’t have to worry about compensating for exposure. I love this feature. When I’m working with black and white film I will often put a yellow filter over the lens just to increase contrast a little and make my negative punchier. This is usually not possible with point and shoot cameras but for whatever reason Minolta made this a feature on the Hi-Matic AF2. Thanks Minolta!!
Photographed with a Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 and Fomapan 100 35mm film.
I bought my Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 at a thrift store for a whopping $6.00. Looking around on-line at sites like eBay and Facebook Marketplace I notice they tend to be going for about $30 or less. I’d call that a fair price if you plan on actually using the camera. A lot of point and shoot 35mm cameras seem to be commanding higher prices these days and I’m happy to see that the Hi-Matic has been spared that particular fate. This is not a miracle camera after all. It isn’t going to make you a better photographer. It doesn’t have the sharpest lens on the planet. It’s metering is adequate and gets the job done but isn’t always perfect.
I’m personally ok with all of that. In fact, I find the camera enduring because it is perfectly average, which isn’t always a bad thing.
