Hello!

A friend of mine claimed that pictures taken with a compact camera aren't good enough for bigger enlargements and was very doubtful about my MINOX 35 GTX. I haven't tried enlarging any photos yet but what do you think, is MINOX 35's good enough for example for taking slides.

-- Jani Heikkinen (jani.heikkinen@vtv.fi), April 07, 2000

Answers

Not all compact camera has good lens. Minox 35m, inparticular Minox GT-E/GT-X/GT-S has a super sharp lens, rivaling the best stardard lens of Leica, Carl Zeiss, Nikon, Canon. Many Minox GT-E photographers routinely enlarge pictures from Minox 35 camera to 20 x 30"

The key points to sharp picture for poster size enlargement are

1. Accurate estimate of distance
2. Use a tripod

I suggest you challange the naysayer to a shoot out, you use you GTX, him use any 35mm lens of same focal length, use same film (ASA 100 or less) put on tripod, shoot at same distance scene(ie at infinity), send to same lab for processing then compare your result.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), April 07, 2000.

I must add: in side by side shoot out with your friend, set you aperture to between f5.6 - f8 where the Minoxar lens is sharpest

Minoxar is a lens of stellar performance.

PS: I have compared my Minox pictrures with pictues from my Leica lenses and Contax camera Carl Zeiss T* lenses, Minoxar rivals the Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm/1.4 which is rated as the best 50mm lens by Popular Photography

On tripod used super sharp Kodak Technical Pan( resolves over 300 lpm )

Click on 'Publisher' and read "Minoxar lens resolution" and "GT-E film Plane Architecture"

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), April 07, 2000.

Martin is absolutely right -- the Minox 35mm cameras yield superior photographs. In my experience the quality of the slides compares favorably with slides shot with my Leica M6, and visibly better than pictures taken with my Contax TVS II.

-- Bob Woods (woorob@msn.com), April 07, 2000.