Peter_S
Peter_S
True, the finder is not particularly good. There is no hot shoe, but I glue (!) things to my compacts (T3 and Minilux) when need to (filters mainly). I was looking for a compact 50mm solution as well, but accepted 40mm and took a Minilux...and find 40mm quite nice actually. My next choice would have been the TVS III though, mainly because I used it in the past and liked it (except for the vignetting at WA and no possibility to attach filters permanentely), and I had nothing but good experiences with Contax.
jcb4718
Well-known
Let me clarify my comment about the Vito B being 'handy'. It's an easy camera to carry around in my hand and it sits nicely in my palm when I turn it, as I must, to both see and adjust the aperture ring, which is right at the front of the lens. It's not pocketable, that I grant you! Maybe only a camera with a retracting lens is pocketable (e.g. the Vito IIa).
oftheherd
Veteran
I'm not quite sure how you describe compact. The left most of the three cameras here, when closed, is about 4 3/4 inches wide, 3 inches high, and 1 1/2 inches thick (at the bulge for the lens). That will fit in a lot of pockets. The other two are a Welta Weltax and a Zeiss 6x9. Both very useful cameras.
Maybe the XA is what you need and just learn to live with the 35mm lens. I prefer 50mm most of the time myself, but I can live with the XA for its granted, smaller size and weight than even the Weltini.
PMCC
Late adopter.
Konica I with Hexar or Hexanon, both excellent lenses, collapsible for compactness.
Greyscale
Veteran
If you want "small like the XA" and if none of the other compacts in this thread suit your definition of compact, then you are likely going to have to settle on a compact zoom if you want a 50mm lens, cameras like the Contax T previously mentioned, or the Konica Lexio 70, or the Fuji Silvi, among several others, or a compact AF camera with dual focal lengths (there are many, but none really small) because a fixed-lens 50mm camera that fits your need seems never to have been made.
raid
Dad Photographer
The Retina with the 50mm lens make a compact camera.
Luddite Frank
Well-known
Braun Paxette.
venchka
Veteran
Oops, that was the fixed-lens Altix IV. Here is the V
Altix-V [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], by Alfred (originally posted to Flickr as Altix-V), from Wikimedia Commons
It is much smaller than my Olympus 35 RC, to give an indication.
The lens looks like it was machined from the same drawings used for the D.R. Summicron. They don't make them like that anymore.
I doubt that it fits the size requirement, but you would have to look long and hard for a better built, better picture making device than my Konica. Known on the internet as the Konica I. The rangefinder today is the equal of my M5 and the Hexar lens takes a backseat to nothing. I own the second version mentioned below.
http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Konica_(I),_II_and_III
The first two cameras that I ever used. The Konica was the first. Dad taught me how to use it. The Brownie was a birthday present when I was 10.
Wayne
PMCC beat me to it.
Greyscale
Veteran
The Altix is a neat little camera, made by EHO-Altissa, an interchangeable lens leaf shutter viewfinder camera, with some nice lenses to go with it. The previous 3 iterations were fixed lens cameras. It is a bottom-loader with a handy trap-door on the back for easier film loading. They are very well built, and are tiny little things, although quite heavy.
I bought mine sans lens, planning to also by one of these CZJ lenses for it, not realizing that it was also minus the bayonet mount entirely. Otherwise, it works perfectly. Maybe I should try making it into a pinhole camera. Oh, well. Better luck next time, I suppose.