Lomography Minitar1 Art Lens

The Lomography Minitar1 Art Lens is a 32mm f2.8 pancake lens for the Leica M mount system. It’s not small…it’s tiny! It all but disappears when mounted.

A couple of my buddies told me separately that they thought that I didn’t have a lens on my camera. It’s so small that it looks like a body cap. If you’re looking for a discreet street-shooter lens, this is it.

The 40mm Rokkor is very small, being that it’s a prime lens. And rangefinder lenses are typically smaller than those for SLR’s. The Minitar is comically teensy by comparison.

I had had specific expectations and intentions when considering buying it, and upon shooting the first roll, I was surprised to find that it out-performed these expectations. Because of this, I’m returning it.

Wait what?

Let me explain.

Imagine picking up a cruiser board from the local shop thinking you’ll just use it for beer runs to the corner store. But then you find that the pop is real nice and snappy, the peculiar shape actually lends itself better to pressure flips than expected, and is just quirky enough that it puts you in a different mindset while skating it.

“But I already have my 8.5” Anti Hero deck, and my trucks have the right grooves already. Why would I skate this new cruiser instead, when my normal board is simply better?”

If you’re still with me, I’ll try to clarify.

Having fallen in love with the lo-fi look of Holgas over the last couple of years, I thought that the Minitar lens might give a similar look, but that I could slap on the front of my everyday shooter, the Minolta CLE, an M mount rangefinder from the early 1980s. If you’re not familiar with the look that Holgas produce, the photos below give a good indication. They’re soft and dreamy around the corners, which ends up being part of the fun and the challenge when using them. If you want your subject to have “sharp” detail, you really can’t get around positioning it in the dead center, as everything else falls off quick.

Holgas are admittedly not “good” cameras. They’re plastic, prone to light leaks, and don’t measure up to even a disposable camera. But you can get some really nice images from them if you know how to use them.

Back to the Lomo lens. I had been thinking about getting the Minitar for a few months. I seem to remember seeing a photo of it mounted on a Leica and thought how novel it looked. Reading reviews online, it was described as having soft corners, noticeable vignetting, good contrast, and modern coatings to stave off flaring. That sounded promising.

The beginning of February, 2023 marks the 4th anniversary of when I got my beloved Minolta CLE, and I thought I’d add a lens to my kit. I was able to find a new copy of the Minitar on Blue Moon of Portland’s website and ordered it.

At 32mm, it is wider than my 40mm that I’m accustomed to shooting, but I thought it would be close enough to pick up and shoot. However, this would be one of the aspects that I would consider when deciding whether I liked the lens enough to keep it or not.

The above photos show the full scene on the left, and how I ultimately cropped it for posting on Instagram on the right. If I had been shooting my 40mm, the framing would’ve been closer to what I’d been wanting in the moment. Through this, I find that it’s wider than I like. As an aside, this is good info if I’m ever feeling like I need a 35mm Summicron (sit down before looking up the price of them).

With the look of a Holga in mind, my main intention for this lens was to shoot it at the end of skate sessions, when everyone’s sitting around in the parking lot having beers. Lifestyle shots with a boost of dreamy nostalgia baked in. Ultimately, this is where the crux of my decision was made to return it.

Voigtlander 28mm Ultron V.2 + Minolta CLE + HP5+

As I mentioned in the opening, the lens out-performed my expectations. It’s sharper corner-to-corner than any Holga could ever hope to be. It is indeed adequately contrasty, and this is without using a yellow filter (which I never go without). It does have its quirks, as there is noticeable pincushioning when shooting a scene with straight lines, as evidenced in the image below. I was aware of this aspect from reviews, and it wasn’t a concern to me because of how and what I typically shoot. It’s the other inherent shortcomings of the lens that I wanted.

The focusing tab has detents to aid in zone-focusing and shooting from the hip, which is what Lomo intends their users to do (see their 10 rules of Lomography). The Minitar is also rangefinder-coupled, which is a positive, but also brings the experience closer to my normal shooter. Because of this feature, I found myself employing critical focusing more often than not, which is how I tend to shoot my 40mm.

From its focal length, to its fast f2.8 aperture, it being rangefinder coupled, and its overall image quality, it is enough like my beloved 40mm Rokkor f2.0 that I would just rather shoot the 40 than the Minitar. It well out-performs a Holga, which is ultimately what I wanted.

It’s weird to seek a sub-par tool, get something that is technically better in pretty much all aspects, and then be disappointed. I can definitely recommend the Lomo Minitar lens to anyone interested in a quirky, unusual experience. But it’s not the right fit for me..

So now the plan is to keep my Holga loaded and bring it on all my skate outings. I’m not sure about using 120 film to shoot parking lot beer crushing, but did you know that there is a Holga 135?

- Fletcher

TWICE THROUGH