What’s so special about this camera? While the Riga Minox was Walter Zapp’s big hit, the A was his culmination of that vision.
- It is the last Minox model that was completely designed by Walter Zapp. Only the flash synchronization of the Model IIIs no longer came from him. All later Minox models were only developed after he had already left the Minox company.
- It is the smallest of the post-war models. The Minox EC is even smaller, but does not belong to this model series.
- The later models B, BL, C, LX offer no significant further advantages apart from exposure metering or exposure control. But they are all significantly larger than the Minox A IIIs. For cameras whose main design goal is tiny size, this is a crucial point.
- In my experience, the Minox A IIIs takes equally good pictures as its successors. So if you can expose according to Sunny 16 – and that’s easier with today’s films than it was 70 years ago – the later Minox models offer no advantages. But they are bigger. From this point of view I think the Minox C is the worst in this regard.
That sounds convincing, but what else do the Minox A IIIs make me smile? No other Minox is so small, so light, so quiet and feels so good!
My three Minox A IIIs cameras are very individual.
Read more on the individual history character:
Minox A IIIs 69569 from 1954: La Bête
Minox A IIIs 124507 from 1957: La Belle
Minox A IIIs 124851 from 1957: La douce