mrjr
Established
That's the wrong adjective, actually. This thing is positively tiny!
I received my Olympus XA just a couple days ago, and was absolutely floored by how tiny this thing is. It's fully 25-30% smaller in every dimension than what I was picturing.
I really didn't realize how small 35mm cameras could be, never having owned anything of the sort.
My first impressions are very positive. It's a camera that I just really want to take everywhere. The body is plastic, sure, but the mechanism works with a satisfying "click", and it doesn't creak or flex. Same with the control levers: nice action and positive clicks. I even like the frame advance.
Obviously, the rangefinder viewing and focusing experience is a trade off. I sometimes have a hard time finding just the right spot that lets me see the shutter speed readout and framelines, and the focusing patch is a little tricky to use even in broad daylight. Definitely slows down my shooting, for better or for worse. I'm sure it gets better with practice, but I think I had set my expectations accordingly, so I'm not disappointed.
I like that it feels like a complete and "real" camera experience. Aperture priority shooting, the +1.5 exposure comp. lever, shutter speed display, 1/500ths and ISO 800... clever and usable camera. And beyond that, it has a lot of personality: it's so cheap and cheerful.
Bad news is, I'm already wanting to get another—maybe an XA4 for low ISO landscape and cityscape shots, or any of them really to have different film loaded up. One daytime, and one evening camera. Trying to convince myself just to wait for a cheap one to pop up, haha.
I'll leave you with a funny anecdote about the XA from 30 minutes ago: I was looking all over the house for it.....
It was in my pocket. (You guessed it!)
Cheers.
I received my Olympus XA just a couple days ago, and was absolutely floored by how tiny this thing is. It's fully 25-30% smaller in every dimension than what I was picturing.
I really didn't realize how small 35mm cameras could be, never having owned anything of the sort.
My first impressions are very positive. It's a camera that I just really want to take everywhere. The body is plastic, sure, but the mechanism works with a satisfying "click", and it doesn't creak or flex. Same with the control levers: nice action and positive clicks. I even like the frame advance.
Obviously, the rangefinder viewing and focusing experience is a trade off. I sometimes have a hard time finding just the right spot that lets me see the shutter speed readout and framelines, and the focusing patch is a little tricky to use even in broad daylight. Definitely slows down my shooting, for better or for worse. I'm sure it gets better with practice, but I think I had set my expectations accordingly, so I'm not disappointed.
I like that it feels like a complete and "real" camera experience. Aperture priority shooting, the +1.5 exposure comp. lever, shutter speed display, 1/500ths and ISO 800... clever and usable camera. And beyond that, it has a lot of personality: it's so cheap and cheerful.
Bad news is, I'm already wanting to get another—maybe an XA4 for low ISO landscape and cityscape shots, or any of them really to have different film loaded up. One daytime, and one evening camera. Trying to convince myself just to wait for a cheap one to pop up, haha.
I'll leave you with a funny anecdote about the XA from 30 minutes ago: I was looking all over the house for it.....
It was in my pocket. (You guessed it!)
Cheers.
