Fujifilm DL Super Mini

I came across the DL super mini while i was going through a box of junk cameras on a car boot sale. It was in pretty bad condition, dirty with a small nick on the lens cover and loads of dust on the lens and the viewfinder. I asked the seller how much he wanted for it and he told me that he "has no idea what it is but i can have it for a couple of quids".
The Fuji DL SuperMini is Fujifilm's largely failed attempt to sit between the Hi-Class pocket cameras (Minolta TC-1, Nikon 28Ti, Ricoh GR-1) and the consumer range of advanced compacts (i.e Olympus Stylus Epic) and that failure is mainly due to two reasons. First of all, it reached the UK market with a delay of 1,5 year of it's release and second because of poor marketing which meant that after one year it was replaced by the DL SuperMini Zoom. It enjoyed better reception in the Japanese market (under the name Tiara) and there is an updated model called Tiara II, differing in some internal programing and an integrated hand strap. This was an expensive camera at it's time and there was even a special edition package  - a wooden display case with a quality certificate and a photo-book. Back in the mid 90's it won the "TIPA 1995-1996 Best Compact Camera" award.

The SuperMini is a tiny little camera measuring 99.8 X 60 X 31.5 mm and weighing only 153 grams. It is equipped with a Fujinon EBC 28mm f/3.5. Unfortunately I wasn't able to trace a manual but according to a Japanese web page "both groups 4 aspherical 4" (*cheap google translation*) which to my understanding means "4 elements (two of which aspherical) in 4 groups" - please correct me if wrong. Shutter speeds 1/2 to 1/800 sec. Four focusing modes (we'll come back to this later) and nice aluminum body. There are the usual flash modes ( Auto, red-eye reduction, flash off, backlight compensation, Night Portrait) and the usual annoyance that comes with them, mainly the resetting back into "auto" each time you switch off the camera. The camera has a panorama switch which masks part of the negative and a sensor right below the flash that warns you if your finger is in front of the flash. An interesting thing are the four different focusing modes : AF, Infinity mode, manual focus (you set the camera focusing distance manually from 0.35 meters to 10 meters and infinity) and Snap mode. This Snap mode will focus between 1.5 and 3 meters and the camera will choose a small aperture to throw everything in sharp focus. With a 28 mm lens, in theory, with f/5.6 you can have everything in focus between 1.83m to 8.41m. This makes the camera fairly swift to take pictures with without having to wait for the AF. Good idea and it works.

Another cool feature of this camera is the drop in loading. You just pull the film lead out and you drop it inside the camera. Then what happens is, the camera removes all the film from the canister and each picture you take it winds it back in the film canister. Great idea, even if the camera back opens, all your pictures you've taken are safe in the canister.

The SuperMini is the tiniest compact camera I've ever handled. It is very often nick-named "The sardine tin" due to it's rectangular design and the metal body. Smaller than the Olympus Stylus Infinity and better build, it's made to take a couple of good kicks and the aluminum body hides scratches very well. It is even smaller (and again better build) than the Stylus Epic.

Now, how good is the lens? Every well seasoned photographer from the 60's - 70's will swear by the performance of the Fujinon lenses which together with Konica's Hexanons are some of the underrated diamonds of the photographic world. This little lens does live up to it's name. It is sharp and contrasty, recording more detail than my crappy scanner can resolve.

 On a very popular website I've read a couple of complaints about the lens vignetting too much. I'm not so sure about it, i think the vignetting it exhibits is due to the leaf shutter design (more here) and not so much on the lens itself. Truth is i need to run more films through it but it is definitely not as prominent as XA2's. A bit of barrel distortion is present as you would expect it. The lens is supposed to be one of the main sale points of this camera and it does resolve a great deal of detail although it suffers occasionaly from flare if it is turned towards bright sun (anyway, which lens doesn't?). All in all, this is a very nice lens, with a purple/green coating.


Conclusion

The Fuji DL SuperMini has a charm you cannot resist. It is a camera that grows in you. My only complain is the 28mm lens, a focal length that I find difficult to work with as I prefer to leave some space between myself and my subject. Still I like the DL SuperMini a lot. The tiny size makes me choosing it every time over the L35AF (or the Ricoh TF-900D - Review coming soon) and it is much better build than the T4. The lens performs as good as it's Carl Zeiss counterpart. I cannot see any difference in the pictures taken from both cameras, except maybe the Fujinon might be lugging behind only in the most contrasty scenes when faced with strong sunlight but it comes with much better build quality than the T4 and less vignietting and weight than the L35AF.  I am still waiting for the test film from the Olympus Stylus Infinity but as things are at the moment, the DL SuperMini wins my (highly subjective) "Pan's Ultimate Point-n-Shoot camera".

Update: I developed another film taken with the DL Super mini, this time in fresh developer and the results were amazing.I used ID-11 diluted 1:1 for more contrast and the pictures are sharp and contrasty, definately better than the T4.

Lasting impressions

I have sold the little Fuji since. I suppose that i am not a P&S person after all. Excellent build quality and the lens was a diamond. One thing that really annoyed me is the fact that the camera will go into battery-save mode and fall sleep. I realised it the hard way, when i wanted to take the picture (and of course i didn't). Part of the sale funded the purchase of the Minolta AF 28 f/2.8 for my 9xi which of course is a stellar lens (and very unappreciated) and with the rest of the money I got some Tri-X for the rest of the year. A beautiful little camera to have though if you are a P&S person.