Minolta Pocket Autopak 450E (1977)

The Minolta Pocket Autopak 450E is a 110-cartridge pocket camera released in 1977. It came along after Kodak started the “brick”-style Pocket Instamatic format in 1972. It was a step up from the earlier Pocket Autopak 430E, and the record shows it was more capable than the typical fixed-focus 110 of the era.

The lens is a Rokkor 26mm f/3.5, four elements in three groups, and it is faster than the 430E’s optic. Focusing is manual, done with symbols, across five focus settings, and it gets down to just 0.9 feet. A built-in close-up lens can be shifted over the main lens for near work. The shutter is a fixed 1/200 sec. The viewfinder is a bright-frame type with parallax correction, and an LED warns of low light. A sliding lens cover locks the shutter when closed. The manual documents one more thing. When a flash unit is mounted, the camera automatically sets smaller apertures for focus distances of 12 feet or less to prevent overexposure, assuming a fixed-output flash with a guide number of 40. That kind of automatic flash compensation was unusual for a pocket camera of this class.

Contemporary material praises it as an easy, pocketable point-and-shoot. One owner on Medium noted they picked the Pocket Autopak over a Diana Baby 110 specifically because it “provides more focus ranges and has larger aperture,” and found the larger aperture gave “some good chances to separate foreground and background details on the small 110 negative size.” A period commercial for the camera aired in 1978.

Documentation is thin. No original retail price, weight, or dimensions have surfaced. Market prices vary widely - Retrospekt sold one at $79 (marked “sold out”), while a Bonanza listing asked just $10.85 with case. One eBay listing noted a working shutter but a flash that no longer fires, which suggests flash failure is a common thing to check. An instruction manual covering both the 450E and 430E survives via Butkus. The “very rare” claim in one Amazon listing is not corroborated anywhere else.

Camerapedia dates the release to 1977, and the manual hosted at subclub.org confirms the flash-aperture compensation behavior.