The Minolta P’s

The Minolta P’s is a simple point-and-shoot dedicated panoramic 35mm camera. Manufactured by Minolta in 1991, the P’s came in multiple colors (red, blue, green, and gold), has a 24mm f/4.5 lens with five coated glass elements in five groups, and built-in autofocus. With shutter speeds from 1/4 to 1/200 second, the P’s accepts DX coded film from ISO 100 to 400. The camera’s auto advance, flash, and auto rewind are powered by a CR123a battery, and a separate CR2025 battery to power the date/time stamp.

To create the panoramic image, the Minolta P’s simply masks part of the film in the camera. The masking combined with the wide lens gives you a simple but pleasing 77-degree horizontal panoramic image. The bright viewfinder on the P’s helps you compose an image with a 3:1 aspect ratio viewfinder.

The P’s electronic flash is automatically enabled when sliding the lens cover open. Unfortunately, you must manually turn the flash off by holding down the flash cancel button. As with most point-and-shoot cameras released during the early 90s, the P’s comes with few features. It does have a date/time stamp feature, but it stops at 2019. When rewinding the film, the P’s leaves the film leader out, making it super easy when you’re ready to load the film onto your developing reels. Is the lens sharp? Yes, in the center, but as you can see from my photos below, it does vignette and distort with some visible blur at the edges.

Overall, the Minolta P’s is a fun camera to use. The compact body fits comfortably in your hands. It’s really a no-frills, auto-everything point-and-shoot camera. The last time I traveled to Europe, I created a lot of digital panoramic images. My plan is to take this camera when I visit Italy this summer to create black and white panoramic images on film. I like this observation that Roberto Felipe made about the P’s in his article on CasualPhotoPhile.com, “Picking up the Minolta P’s is a choice to accept the challenge of less. The challenge of limitations. It’s a choice to expose less of the film negative and not think it’s a waste. A choice to change your perspective figuratively and literally. Picking up the Minolta P’s is a choice to flex your creative muscle.”

Camera: Minolta P’s (1991)
Film: Ilford Delta 100 Pro
Process: Process: Kodak HC-110 (1+31) 6 Min @ 20°C
Scanned: Epson V700 Photo