The Roll That Got Away (or did it?)

My Outing With the Konica C35

I bought a Konica C35 on eBay. I wasn’t really looking for another camera—I swear—but something about the C35’s reputation caught my attention. It’s a 35mm rangefinder from the late ’60s, small, unassuming, and apparently beloved for its sharp little lens. It was cheap, it looked clean, and I had a roll of Kodak ColorPlus 400 burning a hole in my fridge. So: why not?

The camera arrived a few days later. That was two years ago.🤓 ✌️
Last week I finally took it for a spin. Shooting with it felt… good. There’s no fancy autofocus, no LCD, no metering feedback beyond a little needle in the viewfinder. You just focus, frame, and shoot. It makes photography feel like something you do with your hands again, not a touchscreen. The rangefinder patch is somewhat faint, but manageable. It slowed me down in a good way.

So I wandered around Brooklyn and shot the roll. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Bada bing, bada boom. Felt pretty good about it too. Some street scenes, a few portraits, light filtering through some late afternoon trees—the usual stuff, but with that little film glow in the back of my mind.

Then came the part no one talks enough about: rewinding.

I wasn’t totally sure how long it should take. I’d been rewinding for a while and it felt fine —smooth, consistent resistance—until I suddenly heard a SNAP. Not loud, just enough to make me pause. Was that the film leader coming loose like it’s supposed to… or something else? I second-guessed myself. Maybe I’d already rewound the whole thing. Maybe I was being too cautious. So I did the one thing you’re supposed to do when you’re unsure: I cracked open the back.

A flash of orange light hit the film. I slammed it shut. Too late.

Pretty sure I fogged the whole roll. I could see it: that faint, awful pink cast on the exposed side of the film. Maybe I’d get a frame or two out of it, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

First, a bit of history…

The Konica C35 came out in 1968 and was basically one of the first truly compact cameras that delivered sharp, reliable results without a ton of fuss. It had automatic exposure (pretty novel at the time), a really good fixed 38mm f/2.8 lens, and a dead-simple design. You still had to focus it yourself, but it took care of the rest. It was a kind of proto-point-and-shoot, years before those words meant anything.

Andy Warhol apparently carried one around.

Andy Warhol with his Konica; photo David McGough from vintagecamerasyle.com

There were a bunch of versions over the years—some with flash, some with faster lenses, even an autofocus model. But the original still holds up because it’s light, sharp, and satisfying. It just works (if you don’t open the back too soon).

What’s the Appeal Now? Honestly? It’s the lack of features. That sounds backward, but it’s true. There’s no menu to scroll through, no raw files to worry about, no autofocus hunting. Just a bright little window, a solid lens, and whatever film you’ve got loaded.

It’s not better than modern cameras. It’s just different. Slower. Quieter. More deliberate. You don’t fire off 20 shots—you take one and hope you nailed it. You don’t check your screen because there is no screen. It’s kind of thrilling.

Normally, I do a bit of post—white balance, some cropping, little tweaks here and there to nudge things closer to what I saw or felt. But not with these. I haven’t touched them. No edits, no corrections. They’re like the first draft that came out of my typewriter—raw and messy.

Yesterday, I told my wife, “Even with that blown roll, I’m excited to shoot again. I’ll be more careful next time. I’ll rewind fully. I’ll resist the urge to peek. And maybe…”

She didn’t miss a beat: “You should open the back every time. It’s the most artistic thing you’ve ever done. If those light leaks improved your personality the way they improved your composition, you’d be an ideal husband. Okay, maybe not “ideal”, but at least in the right neighborhood.”

And that, folks, is married life in a nutshell.

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’Til next time.
ak