The Rollei 35 film camera is back as the Rollei 35AF, and it's better than ever. Two years ago, Hong Kong-based photography company Mint announced that it was working on a project to bring back the 35mm compact camera. 
After a long journey, the camera is finally ready for the market, although the project's popularity has created some production constraints for Mint. The new 35AF could be preordered starting September 10th for a little over 800 Euros, but the company had to close down orders by September 12th to be able to fulfill all orders in the next few months. 
Rollei launched the original 35AF at Photokina in 1966 as the smallest 35mm film camera of its time. The German company would eventually produce about 2 million units of the 35. The camera was somewhat hard to use despite being targeted at hobbyist photographers. Getting sharp pictures with the manual zone focus was a major pain point.

Mint's Rollei 35AF was born from the original idea of solving exactly that problem, hence the AF in the name. The autofocus system on the new device is powered by a Lidar sensor, and it's not the only big difference from the original. The new 35AF sports a 35mm F2.8-16 lens with a 5-element design, whereas the original Rollei 35 models mounted a 40mm F2.8 or F3.5 Zeiss lens.

"What we tried to achieve with this lens is to recreate a slightly nostalgic 1980-90s feel", writes Mint in a blog post. "It's a combination of balancing the contrast, sharpness, and color rendition to evoke that classic aesthetic while still delivering modern performance."
From the test pictures we've seen so far (you can find some at the end of our gallery), Mint did an extraordinary job of bringing that aesthetic back to life. 
The Rollei 35AF launch will also benefit from the renewed interest in film photography that we've seen in the last few years. 

Moreover, the fact that such a small independent company like Mint was capable of bringing a completely new Rollei to the market proves that redesigning old film cameras is a viable and achievable goal with very limited resources. We're hoping that Canon and Nikon might take notes and fund some low-budget pet projects to bring back old glories, such as the AE or FM 2. 
We have absolutely no doubt that, if priced and marketed properly, they would pay back the development costs in no time while working as free advertising for both brands. One can hope.