Little Glass Eye: Rollei AFM 35

It's often said that everyone who's serious about photography should have a point-and-shoot, and keep it in their pocket at all times. I decided that it was time I finally got serious, but for a number of reasons felt that the PowerShot S40 wasn't ideal for the mission. After reading some review, I went for a second-hand Rollei 35 AFM. These are my early impressions of it.

I knew pretty well what my requirements were: no-compromises optical quality, f/2.8 or brighter, between 35 and 50 mm focal length, an adequately good viewfinder, fast and straightforward operation, manual control over flash, not much bigger than a cellular phone, aperture-priority AE with AE compensation (or possibility for workaround, such as spot metering), and reasonably priced.

Unfortunately, at this writing there's no digital camera that quite fits these requirements. We have a PowerShot S40, which takes very nice pictures -- but it's slow and fussy to operate, rather bigger than I'd like, the optics are good but not stellar, the viewfinder is terrible, and besides my wife Joanna has pretty much monopolized it. Also, the problem with digital is power: rechargeables leak charge even if the camera isn't in use, so I can't just stick it in my pocket and forget about it.

So, it had to be film.

Fortunately, my first requirement (no-compromises optics) cut the number of contenders to a fairly small number. After a little bit of research, I had my short list down to:

Yashica T4 or T5

Pros: Excellent Zeiss T* lens, compact, clean design, good metering.

Cons: Limited manual control. Apparently somewhat slow to operate. Viewfinder not great.

Contax T2 or T3

Pros: Excellent Zeiss T* lens, compact, good metering, great build, good viewfinder, good manual controls.

Cons: Price. No way I was going to drop 900 Euro on a film point-and-shoot, however nice. Also, the T3 is apparently a bit fussy to use.

Leica Minilux

Pros: Excellent Leica 40/2.4 lens, compact, good metering, good manual controls, superb build, good viewfinder.

Cons: Again, price. I could find this for 510 Euros new, but it's still more than I wanted to pay. Besides, it's a bit too yuppie for my taste.

Olympus Mju 2

Pros: Highly affordable, weatherproof, very compact, very clean design, decent viewfinder, excellent optics.

Cons: Limited manual controls (although I think it would've been enough in the end), not great tactile feel (e.g. hard to tell by touch or hearing when it's focused right).

Rollei 35 AFM

Pros: Excellent optics, reasonably clean design, good metering, good manual controls, good build, decent viewfinder.

Cons: None that I could think of... at the time.