With the way I use point and shoot cameras, it usually takes a while for me to go through a whole roll of film. I throw them in a bag or in my jacket pocket and shoot a few pictures here and there. Therefore, my Olympus MJU I is often already loaded with a film that I don’t want to shoot in the moment.
Browsing the web to find a second point and shoot camera to be a bit more flexible concerning the choice of film. I stumbled upon the Nikon L35AF. The cool 80s design and reading about the quality of the 35mm 2.8 lens made me want it. The L35AF is a simple auto everything camera but you can at least prevent the flash from firing by pushing it down once it pops up. As I like pushing film, I choose the version that lets one select ISO´s up to 1000 over the version that tops out at 400. A neat feature is that the camera leaves the end of the film out of the canister when it rewinds. If the shutter button ever locks up even though the camera is switched on check if you accidentally moved “number one” of the two rewind buttons. That happened to me once and it took me a while to figure out that my L35AF did not turn into a nice 80s design paperweight. The lightmeter and autofocus are accurate but most important the quality of the lens is awesome.
I guess it is best for you to make your own opinion on the quality of the Lens. Therefore, I want to share five frames shot on Ilford HP5+ pushed to 1000 with you. Last year my wife and I visited a car graveyard “Bilkyrkogården i Ryd” in Sweden. A very cool place to visit. In the 1930’s a peat farmer used old car motors and such to build a small peat factory to make his life a bit easier. Collecting a bunch of old vehicles on his land opened up a new business opportunity. He started to sell used car parts. The remains of that can be seen today over quite a large area inside a forest. We were lucky to be the only visitors at that time and day. Walking through the lonely forest seeing these cars already sunk into the ground a bit and trees growing through the rusty vehicles created a real apocalyptic mood.
If you enjoyed this i’d be happy if you visite me on instagram @chrispyx87
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Ilya on 5 Frames with a Nikon L35AF – By Christian Diehlmann
Comment posted: 26/02/2019
I had the same camera last winter but ended up sticking to my Nikon SLR, which told me what I was focusing on and what the shutter speed was going to be. But I’m glad you’ve made this work so well!
Comment posted: 26/02/2019
Laurence Kesterson on 5 Frames with a Nikon L35AF – By Christian Diehlmann
Comment posted: 26/02/2019
They were revolutionary cameras when they were introduced.
Comment posted: 26/02/2019