page_title: Minox
section_title: Technical details of Minox 8×11 cameras
hierarchical_section_title: Minox / Minox subminiature camera / Technical details of Minox 8×11 cameras
caption_attribution_description: English: MINOX LX GOLD SELECTION WITH WOODEN BOX AND LEATHER CASE
context_page_description: Minox is a manufacturer of cameras, known especially for its subminiature camera.
  The first product to carry the Minox name was a subminiature camera, conceived in 1922, and finally invented and produced in 1936, by Baltic German Walter Zapp. The Latvian factory VEF manufactured the camera from 1937 to 1943. After World War II, the camera was redesigned and production resumed in Germany in 1948. Walter Zapp originally envisioned the Minox to be a camera for everyone requiring only little photographic knowledge. Yet in part due to its high manufacturing costs the Minox became more well known as a must-have luxury item. From the start the Minox also gained wide notoriety as a spy camera.
  Minox branched out into 35 mm film format and 110 film format cameras in 1974 and 1976, respectively. Minox continues to operate today, producing or branding optical and photographic equipment.
context_section_description: The original Riga-made Minox had a brass chassis covered in a stainless steel shell, with telescopes to reveal or cover the lens and viewfinder windows, as well as to advance the film. It was equipped with a parallax correcting viewfinder, which was coupled to a Cooke triplet type Minostigmat 15 mm f/3.5 lens. The lens was capable of focusing as close as 20 cm, and, due to its small image size, provided such depth of field at full aperture that a diaphragm was deemed unnecessary. The maximum focus zone was about one meter to infinity. In front of the lens was a metal foil curtain shutter, which was itself protected by a window. These were advanced features at the time for any camera, regardless of size.
  The dimensions of the Minox subminiature camera are: 80 mm × 27 mm x 16 mm; weight: 130 g.
  The Minox cameras project an image of 8×11 mm onto the negative. The film is in strips 9.2 mm wide, or less than one-quarter the size of 35 mm film, and unlike 35 mm film, it has no sprocket holes. This film strip is rolled up in the supply side chamber of a small twin chamber cartridge, with the film leader taped to a take-up spool in the take up chamber. The film strips can be up to 50 frames in length for Riga Minox and Minox II, III, IIIs and B cameras. From Minox BL and C cameras onward the Minox film cartridge holds 15, 30, or 36 exposures.
  The VEF Riga has a three-element flat film plane lens. Performance could be improved, so the short-lived Minox II (1948–1951) had a new 5 element lens (called complan) whose final element would rest against the film itself when the pressure plate pushed the film onto the lens. Customers complained of film scratches with this new design, so most of these lenses were replaced by MINOX with the later curved-field compensating lens. Consequently, original 'film lens' Minox II are exceptional.
  Early Minox cameras from Minox A/III to Minox B were equipped with a four-element, three-group Complan (lens) designed by ex-Leica lens designer Arthur Seibert. The Complan lens has a curved film plane, hence in these cameras the negative must be held in an arc to improve the edge-to-edge sharpness of the image. The Minox enlarger also holds the negative in this same curve. Later models, beginning with late model Minox B, to the current model TLX, using the 15 mm f/3.5 four-element, three-group flat-field Minox lens, holds the negative flat. The advance was attributed by Rolf Kasemeier (Small MINOX Big Pictures 1971 edition) to new rare-earth element, high-index, low-dispersion, optical glasses becoming available (probably from Schott Glass, of Jena). Note that lens performance between old and new complan/minox lenses was rated by MINOX themselves as identical.
  At this time to differentiate between negatives taken with the older complan lens and negatives taken with the later minox lens, MINOX introduced an edge code in the negative. Since the MINOX C (the first camera released with the new minox lens) every 8x11mm camera had a distinct edge code to identify the camera. The reason was that commercial processors used MINOX enlargers. As the minox lens replaced the complan, so the enlargers had to change lenses: MINOX II enlargers were curved negative track and complan lenses, MINOX III enlargers were straight negative track and minox lenses. Ironically, owners of Rigas and model II cameras would get better results from a MINOX III enlarger than a MINOX II enlarger.
  The early Minox cameras from Riga to Minox B, BL and AX, were equipped with a mechanical shutter, while later model Minox ( C, LX, EC, TLX ) cameras have an electromagnetic shutter. When closed, the viewfinder and lens windows are protected. Complan lens and Minox lens are unit focusing lens, focusing from 8 inches (20 cm) to infinity through precision gear linked to a focusing dial on top of the camera. All Minox cameras, except the EC and MX, have a parallax correction viewfinder: when the focusing dial moves, the viewfinder moves in tandem to correct for parallax.
  From the Riga to Minox B, the film counter counts up to 50, while from Minox BL,
caption: MINOX LX gold selection with wooden box and leather case
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