This the second Big Mini I have tried and one of the cameras I tried in my last week in Japan. The first one I tried had a faulty flash, but this one’s worked well. The panoramic switch next to the viewfinder was loose and kept returning to that setting, so I taped it up. If I decide it is worth the weight to keep it I might end up glueing it in place as that feature is superfluous now. This time I did not use an experimental film but did use a new-to-me developing lab.

I found the internal panoramic mask a little confusing at first given the issues with the switch. When turned off the mask is down whether it is the choice or not. So when putting a film in the camera you might think the mask is stuck. Once you turn on the camera the lens moves forward and the mask shifts into the correct position. There is a cool cover over the lens that moves out of the way when switched on. You can find technical details for this 1994 camera here.

I used two point and shoots around the same time, this one and the Olympus Mju 105 Delux. I much preferred the results from this one. That might be due to the slightly larger aperture of 3.5 as opposed to 5.6 on the Olympus. The zoom on this one was smaller, 35-70mm.

I got both films developed at the same place and both had the same purple tinge, though we were having heatwave maybe the film just melted.

Here are the results from this camera.

Ok, ignore the film, the camera is sharp. It looks great. Given a choice between this and the Olympus I choose this one. Plus as I am leaving I do not have to use that lab again. But my overall feeling is that I do not like either.

Keep or Sell: I think I took it back to the shop or gave it away, I don’t remember now.. It wasn’t worth the weight.