Capsule review : Olympus XA
One’s phone lies almost always within easy reach. The phone most likely has a camera capable of taking pretty pictures, albeit with the help of software interpretation. But its camera has an insurmountable, physical limitation : the size of the sensor, almost certainly just a small fraction of a 35mm (full frame) size. The capturing area is perhaps the one place where a camera like the Olympus XA, and other compact film cameras of a bygone era, beats a phone or a compact digital camera. Using a compact film camera like the Olympus XA can be a wonderful introduction to the world of film photography, with its intuitive aperture-priority mode and its reassuring focusing ability. Though in truth rangefinder focusing on such a small camera presents its own practical limitations and can profitably be abandoned in favor of zone focusing like with the Minox GTE.
Rating : ★★★★★
published