Minolta AF-S Review: First Roll with the ’80s Blocky Beauty and a Film I’d Never Touched Before

There are moments in life when you look back and think: “yep, that was not the smartest choice“. For me, that moment came somewhere between loading my very first roll of Shanghai GP3 100 ISO and pressing the shutter on my newly acquired Minolta AF-S.

Why? Because in the spirit of OFAT (One Factor at a Time), I managed to break a very important rule: don’t introduce multiple unknowns at once. I had never used this camera, and I had never shot this film. Two wild cards in one hand. What could possibly go wrong? Spoiler: quite a bit.

Minolta AF-s review – The Specs

– Year: Early 1980s
– Lens: Minolta Rokkor 35mm f/2.8 (fixed)
– Focus: Infrared autofocus
– Shutter Speeds: 1/8 – 1/430s (automatic)
– SO Range: 25–400
– Flash: Pop-up, manually activated
– Minimum Focusing Distance: 0.8m

Solid, right? The specs looked pretty promising for an 80’s point and shoot, which is why I had high hopes going in.

First Impressions of the Camera

The Minolta AF-S feels surprisingly solid in hand. There’s a certain ‘80s blockiness that just clicks with me. Maybe because I secretly enjoy objects that look like props from a low-budget sci-fi movie, or just maybe because blocky plastic rectangles have a strange charm.

Mine is, unfortunately, not the legendary talking model that will politely tell you when to load film or say “too dark.” Nope, I got the mute sibling. But hey, at least it looks cool.

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This camera has one of the most beginner-friendly loading systems I’ve ever seen. You pop the film in, press down a clear plastic tab, and the camera pulls the leader in place while the back is still open. It’s like the AF-S is saying: “Relax, I’ve got this.”

This is brilliant because, let’s face it, every film shooter knows that mild wave of panic when you close the back of a camera and pray the film is actually caught. Here, you get proof before committing.

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Another thoughtful feature: when you finish the roll, the leader doesn’t rewind fully into the canister. This is a small mercy for those of us who develop at home. No more cracking open canisters in the changing bag with sweaty hands and muttered curses or fumbling with a film leader retriever that never works as advertised.

The only mild annoyance: the lens cap. Not only is it manual, but the little tether that’s supposed to prevent you from losing it has long since disappeared. So every time I take it off, I feel like I’m starting a round of “Where’s Waldo?”, except Waldo is a tiny piece of black plastic that hides exactly where I swear I didn’t just put it.

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Shooting Experience

I’ll admit it: I’m a Minolta fanboy. The Minolta 7000i was my very first film camera, and to this day it still holds the crown as my favorite. I’ve had great experiences with other Minoltas too, so I figured this little AF-S would be a safe bet. Online reviews did warn me about one recurring issue: underexposure.

To hedge my bets, I tried to outsmart the camera by setting the ISO one stop lower than my film speed. Since I was shooting Shanghai GP3 100, I told the camera it was loaded with ISO 50. In theory, that should have compensated. However, in practice… well, let’s just say my optimism was not rewarded.

Looking back, the whole setup was not ideal to begin with. I live in a place where the weather seems contractually obligated to be gloomy. On this particular day it was drooly, cloudy, and absolutely stingy with the light. Pairing this with low-ISO film and a camera that has a reputation for underexposing felt like walking into a rainstorm with a paper umbrella. It was indeed the perfect recipe for disappointment.

Still, I was excited and took the AF-S out for a stroll around my neighborhood. The shutter button had that satisfying click that makes you want to keep pressing it. In addition, I loved the little sliding switch on the back: flick it up and the flash pops open, push the flash back down and it’s gone. Simple, tactile, and fun.

Inside the viewfinder it’s a pretty barren landscape. No exposure scale, no focus confirmation, nothing to reassure you. Just a lonely underexposure warning light, blinking at me like a tiny red flag saying: “Good luck, buddy.”

Even so, I enjoyed walking around with it, snapping away like it was 1984. At least until the scans came back and reality hit harder than the underexposure warning ever could.

Developing, Scanning, and Facing the Results

For those interested in the details: I developed the GP3 in Rodinal 1:50 for 9 minutes. First minute fully agitated, then 15 seconds each minute. Nothing exotic — just the standard rodeo. Scanning was done on my trusty Canon Canoscan 4200f from 2004, which somehow still soldiers on in 2025 like some kind of plastic tank. It’s not winning any awards, but it keeps chugging along and that’s all I ask of it.

As if gloomy weather wasn’t enough, I made another rookie mistake: shooting ISO 100 indoors at a badly lit party, while also testing the limits of how many drinks I can have before my own focus becomes optional (needless to say I will keep these photos for the prive archive). Needless to say that when the scans appeared on screen, so did my disappointment. Nearly everything was underexposed, despite setting the camera’s ISO to 50.

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As if my photos looking like black blobs that only vaguely resembled something wasn’t enough, the focus situation was… let’s call it tragic. A shocking number of shots were soft. Not in the dreamy, artsy sense, but more in the “is this a camera or a baked potato?” sense. For an autofocus point-and-shoot, that’s not exactly what i’d hoped for.

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At this point I started feeling like Kin’emon when Kanjuro confessed he was the traitor and Orochi’s lapdog: “Minolta, I trusted you…” But instead of sulking too long, I did what anyone does… I asked ChatGPT.

Turns out the AF-S uses infrared autofocus that always locks onto whatever is dead-center in the frame. If you want to re-compose, you can’t just wing it. You’ve got to do the half-press dance:

– Point the center of the frame at your subject.
– Half-press the shutter to lock focus.
– Re-compose your shot.
– Fully press the shutter.

On top of that, the minimum focusing distance is 0.8 meters. Anything closer and the camera basically throws up its hands and pretends it tried. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I ignored both of these rules, which explains why so many of my shots look like they were focused by a drunk raccoon.

Lesson learned: on the next roll, I’ll be much more deliberate — focus lock first, re-compose after, and for the love of Minolta, respect the 0.8-meter limit.

Minolta AF-s review – Final Thoughts (for Now)

In conclusion, was my Minolta AF-s review a success? Absolutely not. But was it valuable? Definitely. I learned that:

1. Mixing new camera + new film = chaos.
2. Underexposure will always find you, no matter how clever you think you are.
3. Autofocus from the early ‘80s is not the flawless miracle I romanticized.

Furthermore, I realized that if I actually want to get a proper feel for a camera’s capabilities, I should take test rolls a bit more seriously. This time I was just shooting for the sake of shooting — half-distracted, half-curious — and the result was an entire roll that can only be described as trash.

Next time, I’ll go back to my trusted Fomapan 400, give this camera another shot, and hopefully come away with results worth showing. Until then, I’ll wear my blurry, underexposed frames as a badge of honor. Every failed roll is still a step forward.

Besides, what’s film photography without a little trial and error?

Ps. when writing this review I read somewhere that it’s a good idea to always overexpose black and white film to a centrain degree. I’m going to dig a little deepter into this and find out if this holds any merit.