The Konica Hexar AF is a wonderful, small, 35mm film camera. It’s motorised but does have a “silent” mode, if you find yourself in a nice quiet church or museum. It’s auto focus, but has a focus lock should you require. It has a wonderful sharp f2 35mm lens. It does not have a built in flash, but it does have a hot shoe, and mine came with a dedicated small flashgun, which I never used. I’m not a big flash user. The auto focus seemed both fast and accurate to me. The viewfinder was large and had a clear bright line viewfinder. Mine came to me stupidly cheap, before film photography came “back into fashion”. I regret trading it in towards another camera now – sort of. I say sort of, as I have a lightly self imposed rule that I don’t go wild and spend more than a certain amount on gear in any given year. So I often trade a couple of cameras, in order to get something different, this was the case, and what I got was better. The only bad thing I can find to say about this camera is that the battery door is not captive as with so many cameras. I know that sounds a stupid thing to say, as many more aren’t. There was the occasion however when I needed to change the battery. Sat on a suitable seat in the middle of a shopping precinct. Dropped the door that dropped straight into a perfectly placed shallow drain! After a half hour of swearing, buying a pair of BBQ tongs, and laying on the floor I finally got it!
When I traded it, the prices for these had gone sky high and I got back about 10 times what I paid for it – just as well as what I brought wasn’t cheap – but that’s another story for another day! One of the last times I used it was about this time of year, at West Moors Country Park. They have small steam trains there, and have “Santa Weekends” the photographs below were made with the camera on good old Agfa 200 Vista, that we used to be able to buy from Poundland for £1 a roll pre-covid – happy days!
S.H.O.U.T. 