Minolta Vectis-S1
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The Minolta Vectis S-1 camera is not particularly pretty. But it is pretty cheap. I picked up the example above for less than ten pounds. It is cheap for two reasons:
It uses a type of film which is no longer made.
It probably won’t work when you get it.
The camera uses Advanced Photo System film which was launched in the 1990’s and abandoned in 2011. But this is not a huge problem, you can still get film cassettes for it, albeit ones which will be at least 13 years old. The system uses a very complicated film loading mechanism containing many whirring and clicking parts. The first example of this camera I got made a few unhappy sounds too, followed by total lockup. But the sample above was made of sterner stuff and seems to be able to load film and take photos OK. I got hold of some film and took some shots.
I’ve not made the holders that go on top of the film yet.
The system was designed so that the film stayed in the cassette at all times. The processing and printing machinery was clever enough to get the film out of the cassette, print the shots you wanted and then wind it back in again. Of course I don’t have any of that machinery, so instead I designed a little holder which I can load up with film for the scanner. I then pulled the film out of the cassette and cut it into lengths for scanning.
The negatives are 16mm high with a “widescreen” aspect ratio
The results are pretty respectable for a twenty year old camera using fifteen year old film. Above is one of the more interesting ones. There is plenty of detail and the image is sharp enough . The shadows are very grainy though, probably because of the age of the film.
I’m not sure if I’d use this camera and film combination for any pictures that I really care about (although the auto-focus and exposure seem to work well). But it is fun to get out and play with.
