In 1993, when point-and-shoot cameras were still considered beneath serious photographers, Konica released something that refused to fit into any category. The Hexar AF looks like a rangefinder, shoots like a rangefinder, but is technically a point-and-shoot. It has the most whisper-quiet shutter of any 35mm camera ever made — quieter, in measured tests, than a Leica M6. And its fixed 35mm f/2 lens is considered one of the finest lenses ever fitted to a fixed-body camera.
It became, quietly and inevitably, a cult object.
The Lens
The Hexar lens is a 7-element design in 6 groups, sometimes described as a spiritual cousin to the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 W-Nikkor, and visually compared to a Leica Summicron. Whatever its lineage, the results speak for themselves: the images are sharp from corner to corner with low distortion, low vignetting, and a rendering that feels rich and three-dimensional. At f/2 it has character; by f/4 it is clinical. In black and white, shot on Ilford Delta 400 or Kodak Tri-X, it produces negatives that look like they came from a camera costing five times as much.
The Silent Mode
The defining feature of the original black Hexar is its silent mode. Activated by turning the camera off and back on while holding the MF button, it slows the film advance motor to near-inaudibility and reduces shutter noise to something below the threshold of awareness. Early models achieved this through a patented mechanism Konica later had to remove after a legal dispute; the later silver Hexar requires a more complex button sequence to unlock the same behavior.
In silent mode, the Hexar becomes the ideal street camera — or, as one early reviewer noted, suitable for film sets and courtrooms. It is an extreme claim that turns out to be entirely accurate.
Using It
The Hexar is not small. It is approximately the length of a Leica M8 and only slightly thinner — substantial in the hand in a way that feels reassuring rather than burdensome. The autofocus is fast and accurate by 1990s standards, and the camera’s aperture-priority and program modes handle exposure correctly in the vast majority of situations.
The controls are another matter. Many of the Hexar’s features — manual focus override, hyperfocal mode, spot metering on later versions — require memorized button combinations that recall the worst of 1990s electronics design. Most owners settle into using a small subset of the camera’s capabilities and leave the rest undiscovered.
A Camera for Life
The Hexar AF was discontinued in the early 2000s when Konica merged with Minolta. No equivalent has ever replaced it. The 35mm f/2 focal length on a quiet, reliable autofocus body remains a configuration nobody has thought to revive, which means the used market — once cheap — has grown increasingly serious.
A good copy today will cost several hundred euros. A great copy will cost more. Either way, it is worth it. The Hexar is one of those cameras that disappears into the shooting experience, leaving behind only the photographs.