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 What's the coolest, cutest, most collectible class of cameras in the cosmos? Subminiatures would be high on my A-list. These lilliputian marvels include some of the most attractive and ingenious designs in cameradom, and the fact that you can slip most of 'em into your shirt pocket with nary a telltale bulge enhances their visual and visceral appeal.
Defining the tiniest
What is a subminiature? Technically, it's defined as any camera with a format smaller than that of a "miniature" camera-an old-timey term for standard-format (24x36mm) 35mm cameras. However, most photo writers (including this one) would not use this term to refer to 24x24mm-format 35mm cameras like the Robot Star II and Zeiss Tenax, or the legions of half-frame (18x24mm-format) cameras, from Ansco Memos to the passel of Olympus Pens (and their Japanese imitators) that proliferated during the '60s. If usage is the defining criterion, the upper end of the subminiature domain begins somewhere around the Swiss-made Tessina (a tiny TLR with a 14x21mm format on sliced-down 35mm film) and descends to the Echo 8, a Japanese cigarette-lighter camera providing a teeny 5x8mm format on 8mm movie film.
Back in the '60s, the late Kurt Luhn, (of Kling Photo Corp.) lobbied vigorously against the use of the term subminiature (as in substandard), which he found demeaning. He harangued writers, with some success, to call the wee beasties "ultraminiatures," and this term had some currency for a while. However, these days, most collectors and writers proudly refer to the Minox and its multifarious kin as subminiatures, with no aspersions intended.
While subminiatures have employed everything from tiny paper-backed rollfilm (as found in toylike Japanese Hit cameras of the '40s and '50s) to 9.5mm movie film (as in the numerous incarnations and copies of the still-current Minox), the all-time most popular film for subminis has been 16mm movie film. Indeed, the number with a 10x14mm-or-thereabouts format on 16mm film far exceeds all others combined. You can prove this to yourself by going to www.subclub.org, arguably the best subminiature site on the web, and taking a peek at the 150+ entries (from the Albert by Shincho to the Zunow Z16) listed under "16mm Cameras."
I'll start off this mini madness with a genuinely rare bird sent to us for identification and delectation by our old buddy George Ward, of Denver, Colorado. It arrived in an old-fashioned ladies' leather change purse, as good an ever-ready case as any, for this cutie, which bears the legend "Mikronette." Although this 27_8x11_2x11_2-inch beastie (LxWxD) bears a passing resemblance to an SLR due to its peaked finder housing, it is, like most subminis, a scale-focusing viewfinder camera, albeit one with full manual controls.
Grab a sprocket hole!
Atop the Mikronette, on the left side of the finder, is a shutter-speed dial with speeds of 1/25-1/200 sec plus Z (zeit, or time). To the right of the finder is a frame counter that goes from zero to 50. Hanging over the rear of the frame counter, but actually affixed to the back of the top cover, is a milled tab that looks like, and is, the film-wind lever. On the rear of the removable back, there's an exposure table in German for DIN 15 (ISO 32) film. Move the sliding tab on the bottom of the camera to "open," lift the back off, and you'll discover that the Mikronette uses a cartridge-to-cartridge system with the film-supply cartridge on the left of the 9x14mm film aperture, and the take-up cartridge on the right. As you move the spring-loaded film-wind tab to the right, a claw atop the film aperture grabs a sprocket hole and moves the film (and frame counter) forward one frame.
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