>>3436388I have the Balda 35 mini. Balda was the manufacturer of the Minox cameras, at some point they decided to sell some under their own brand.
The main difference from the minox is that it's fully point and shoot, not aperture priority. And some cosmetic differences, for instance in the Balda the viewfinder assembly gets covered by the trap door when you close the camera, so it doesn't get scratched when in your pocket etc.
It's a breeze to use. Zone focus with marking at 3m for hyperfocal, and pictograms to help you with focus (person, 2 people, group, mountain). Or you just guess the distance and set it on the lens.
The viewfinder is big and bright, with clear bright framelines and some dotted lines for parallax.
They're completely quiet because of the leaf shutter, ISO goes up to 1000.
The performance is good, the lens is 38mm f/2.8, and is sharp for its use case. It's softer in the corners wide open, expectedly.
The best thing about the camera is how small and *especially* flat it is. It folds up to the size of a pack of cigarettes, sitting flush on both sides, which makes it very pocketable. You can carry it in even your jeans backpocket, let alone a jacket pocket. It's the most pocketable camera I've ever handled. Many cameras like the XA, point and shoots etc., are small, but the bulge or have a protruding lens etc. . The Minox and Balda are very flat, which makes a big difference.
I usually throat it in a pocket with some ISO400 film and forget it, carrying it with me all the time even when I take other "serious" cameras with me.
Some models have an extra "backlight" button that gives +2EV exp. compensation for when you shoot something backlit that might confuse the meter.
They're fun to shoot, cause you zone focus and just frame and shoot quickly, quietly.
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