Konan 16 Automat was produced based on Mika Automat manufactured between 1947 and 1948.
It had originally developed by Konan camera laboratory, and after that they decided to cooperated with Minolta in manufacturing it for further improvements. In the mean time, Konan 16 Automat was launched in 1950.

As well as Minox, this camera adopted "Push & Pull" operation to wind the film and release the shutter, means that pulling out the camera body caused the film advanced to the next exposure and also the shutter charged. Here, one thing that has to be kept in mind is that once the body is pulled out, photographing has to be done before restoring the camera body, otherwise, a blind exposure is taken.

One of the feature of this is that the unique film magazine is employed on this camera.
Inside this film magazine, there are the film pressure plate and the frame, through which the film is exposed. Also, the plate that keeps the light out from coming inside the magazine is fixed on front of it. These enable to change films outside under the light, and use several kinds of films at the same time.

In 1957, the name of Konan 16 Automat was changed to Minolta 16.
After that, Minolta took over it and began developing 16mm camera series.

• First introduced in March, 1950.
• Viewfinder : Newton finder
• Film winding : Push & Pull operation
• Shutter speeds : T, B, 1/25-1/200sec.
• Film : 16mm, loaded in the magazine
• Lens : fixed focus, Rokkor f3.5/25mm
• Body dimensions : 72 x 46 x 23mm (when the body restored.)
• Body weight : approx. 280g.