Konica Hexar AF

Distinctively the best Point & Shoot for street photography.

CC Image courtesy of wintoid on Flickr

Like any other street camera, the Konica Hexar AF is designed to be discreet and stealthy, ideal for capturing the decisive. In many ways though, the Konica Hexar AF is  very different to it's peers for it's unique layout and body design. The design, reminiscent to it's bigger M-mount brother, the Hexar RF makes it possible to incorporate a full-sized Leica lens design which Konica definitely did; doing an exact copy of the famed 35/2 Summicron into it's own high quality Hexar lens. This is particularly interesting in the camera world as such technology had never been as advanced as the Konica Hexar AF in it's time.

With autofocus abilities and A/P exposure modes, the Hexar AF offers fast operation on the streets, much faster than the old, traditional rangefinders. In real world use, the AF is quick enough to snap people at walking pace, but locking the AF at a certain distance and snap away like you would with old manual focus lenses is much more practical than you would with the Hexar's laggy AF. 

Speaking of lenses, the Hexar AF sports a superb 35/2 Hexar lens which was reputed to be an exact copy of the non-ASPH. Leica 35/2 Summicron. This 7 element in 6 group lens produces image quality on par to that of the Leica but drops in terms of bokeh performance as it seems to lack the dreamy Leica character that makes the images stand out. The Hexar lens will go up to f/22 with the closest focusing distance of 0.6 meters; not great, but good enough for street photography.

The Konica Hexar AF has been dubbed 'the quietest camera on the planet'. This is by no surprise as it's 'silent mode' works brilliantly in reducing the motor noise when advancing the film. The leaf shutter on the Hexar is also notably quite, even more so than the discreet mode on the modern digital Leicas' which requires you to walk away from the subject to release that rather noisy re-cocking sound after you've pressed the shutter. Apparently though, the silent mode was disabled by the factory on the silver models which is a shame, but re-enabling it could be done through some rather complicated programming steps.
.
The shutter on the Hexar operates electronically with the slowest speed of 30 secs up to the fastest speed of 1/250th secs. Autofocus, obviously also requires batteries to operate, this so, makes batteries an absolute necessity for the shutter to operate properly, otherwise the camera would just be a useless luxurious paperweight. 

The focus can be either set manually or with an active-infrared autofocusing system. The autofocus is achieved by half-pressing the shutter until the lamp indicates that the focusing is achieved. By then, the shutter should be fully pressed and the picture is taken. This system of autofocus may sometime miss the mark, but by today's standards it is pretty impressive, especially when comparing to the rather rudimentary technique of manual focusing on the modern Leica M's. 
.

CC Image courtesy of Steven_Anthony on Flickr

Other features include: a standard 'swing-and-open' back door for film transport, a hotshoe for external flash (non TTL), manual over-ride (with 2 stops in 1/3 stops exposure compensation), and a big and bright viewfinder with parallax correction. To correct the parallax error, the framelines are projected onto the viewfinder which corrects the field of view to match that of the image taken from the viewing lens. 

As popular as it maybe, the Hexar came out in three different versions throughout the early 90's. In 1993, Konica came out with the first original Hexar AF in a bulk-standard black finish. Couple of months on, Konica commemorated it's 120 years anniversary with the 'Classic Hexar' in a silver-like finish. These Classics were rare, and by that I mean really rare - only 2000 of them were made. The even rarer limited 'Gold' Konicas were also a commemoration to it's 120 years anniversary - only 500 of them were produced and sold exclusively in walnut exhibition cases and tons of the '120th anniversary' logos embossed almost everywhere in gold. If you're not tired already of Konica's 120th anniversary editions, then look out for the Rhodium/Titanium versions, because they're just as rare and as cool as all the limited edition Hexar's produced in the late 90's.

As it's popularity and price had skyrocketed throughout the recent years for it's 'cult' status, some might question whether the camera is worth buying or not. Well, the Konica Hexar AF had gained many reputation along the years, being one of the classics in the camera world. Today, many photographers find the Hexar a good companion for street assignments. Despite it's awkward design and a rubbish button layout, the Hexar truly deserves a place in any photographers closet. It may not be the most sexiest camera, but it surely gets the job done - pretty damn perfectly.