Mint Reveals Form Of Its New Premium Compact 35mm Film Camera

Mint’s own upcoming and widely anticipated premium compact 35mm film camera has gotten an update on its form factor from the device creator.

In a recent blog post on the Mint website, the company revealed a basic external shell for the camera that showcases its essential external form.

Mint Camera also explains in this blog post that its team has been scarce with updates because it’s been working hard on adjusting the camera body design and other issues like light leaks and viewfinder problems.

As Mint added in the blog post, it’s refining its first 10 pre-production units of the camera but “Mass production comes after that”.

The company does insist that it’s finally, well, finalizing the camera’s design and that after a grueling four-year development process, it’s coming soon.

By soon though, they mean that a 2024 release is “very likely”. Still pretty vague is you ask me, but an improvement over four more years of development.

Mint has also come closer to nailing down a final retail price for the upcoming 35mm camera, which will sell for somewhere between $600 and $800.

So for now, Mint’s upcoming camera now consists of photos of a literal empty shell, an expected release time-frame of one more year, and a price that’s been ballparked to within $200 of what it will probably be when the camera really goes on sale.

The vintage camera retailer does claim justification for delays by adding that the project has been expensive and that R&D costs have been “sky high”.

The Mint team sums up its woes so far by explaining that “The mold costs, labor costs, and everything is just very expensive. Basically Mint is risking the whole company to get this project off the ground,”

Seems like an awful lot of trouble for a device based on technology that’s over 150 years old. On the other hand, analog photography is gaining a resurgence among many photographers.

This trend is very likely to keep growing now that AI image-generating tools have started to cast so much digital photography into doubt about its authenticity.

In other words, despite the production setbacks and costs so far, Mint may be onto something that sells well with this new product.

Either way, in the blog post with the photos, Gary Ho, Mint’s founder, enthuses that the camera design is inspired by the Rollei 35S and adds in a bit of sales and design history by explaining that,

“It’s fascinating to look back because Mint once contemplated offering the Rollei 35 but eventually shifted our focus to the Polaroid SX-70. I only later learnt that the original Rollei 35 is very difficult to handle. You can only guess the focus, and it often encounters issues with the light meter,”

Given his mention of old Polaroid models, it’s also worth noting that Mint recently discovered a whole box of Polaroid SLR 680 cameras in its own warehouse.

These retro cameras, which were in essentially perfect condition, quickly sold out when posted online by the company.

Hopefully, they manage to sell their upcoming 35mm Premium compact camera as quickly whenever it does indeed become available.

Image credit: Mint Camera

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