There’s something almost miraculous about a brand new film camera showing up in 2024, so when Mint announced the Rollei 35AF—modern guts, retro styling, and autofocus—I wanted it to be a love letter to analog shooters. In this video I take it on a two-city test run: downtown Portland (rain, coffee, existential dread) and then the Marin Civic Center outside San Francisco, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s last works and an absolutely perfect backdrop for a camera that feels both futuristic and outdated. I run three rolls through it—Spanish Hundred Red, Kodak Ektar 100, and Rollei RPX 400—and I show you how film loading works… plus what happens when it doesn’t. The camera is straightforward in the viewfinder and I do appreciate the DX code reader and having AF instead of zone focusing, but the handling is rough: the rewind lever feels like recycled yogurt lids, opening the back feels like surgery, and the whole thing is weirdly “tactileless.” My biggest heartbreak was a roll that basically got stuck in a Twilight Zone error while the frame counter happily advanced, leaving me with a few shots and an accidental multiple-exposure saga. Still, when focus hits, it really hits: the lens is sharp, the camera looks cool, and a handful of frames genuinely surprised me. My takeaway is simple: the Rollei 35AF feels like a sketch of a camera with good intentions—but film is still alive, messy, and worth chasing.