Olympus XZ-1 Digital Compact – Travelling in The Punjab and Hindu Kush

Once upon a time, Olympus Corporation followed Panasonic in releasing a compact Digital Camera with a fast lens, they out did Panasonic by adding a faster Zuiko lens with a 1.8 Aperture at the widest focal length to f2.5 at the longest. The Olympus XZ-1 was an excellent camera, finally giving a lot more quality in pocketable form. On eBay these are still going for around £199 in Britain and considering it’s a 14 Year old camera which when new cost RRP £399 that’s not bad.

I bought it new in 2011 and it immediately accompanied me (along with a Contax G2 and Fujifilm GA645) to The Hindu Kush and The Punjab for a 3-4 week trip. I trekked in The Hindu Kush in The Chitral Gol National Park, around the Kalash Villages in Rumbur and attempted the Owir Ann Pass on a several day trek, where I succumbed to the Supernatural (yes really!) and had to be carried down from almost 5000 meters. That didn’t go too well!

For travel, especially in the heat of the Punjab with dust galore, it needs to be sturdy and resilient, the cold hard lands of the Hindu Kush also call for the camera to be solid, and with a sensor capable of handling the light. I’m pleased to say the Olympus XZ-1 ticks most boxes.

I’m not a machine gunner, and even with a digital compact I carefully shoot my photographs, so didn’t come back with several hundred meaningless shots. I actually came back with about 150, of which I had many keepers (I include 36 as a Roll of Film here) I shot exclusively in RAW, and I’ll explain why in a bit.

I had the white version, which isn’t the most slick-looking of colours, but at least it was non threatening and discreet. Looks wise, pretty generic, and not very special. To be honest, offerings from Panasonic and Fuji look better – but that’s not what a digital compact is about in my opinion. I reckon a compact needs to be relatively small, discreet, have a versatile zoom range – which can handle everything from wide-angle to short telephoto/portrait length. A Compact needs to be very fast to operate, switching it on and off should be quick, along with focus and shooting and write times. It also needs to be easy to set up and customise, and have a good battery life.

Olympus XZ-1 specification highlights:

• High Sensitivity 10MP CCD sensor
• 28-112mm equivalent lens
• F1.8-2.5 maximum aperture
• CCD-shift image stabilization
• Twin control dials, including one around the lens
• ISO 100-6400
• New TruPic V processor (as used in the company’s PEN series)
• Large 3.0″ 621k (VGA equivalent) OLED display
• 720p movie mode (30 fps in Motion JPEG format)
• Micro HDMI connector
• 6 Art Filters (As per the PEN series)
• In-camera RAW conversion
• Built-in flash, hotshoe and remote flash control
• Built-in ND filter

In Use

The Olympus XZ-1 is a fine camera, using it was enjoyable, as it’s quick. I set it up to have one central focus point, and switched metering from matrix to spot as required. ISO was set to 100, 200 and I think 400 literally a couple of times – as I’m not much of an indoors or low light shooter.

I simply set it to Aperture Priority (A), and used the lens ring to change Aperture as required. F1.8 is pretty fast for a compact, and f2.5 is pretty fast for 110mm focal length, this enabled me to get some portraits with a shallow depth, which is a bonus on a compact. The lens really is brilliant, it’s perfect! It’s great wide open, and the sweet spot is f4 I think.

Focussing is quick and accurate, as are write times. And the big clear LCD was pretty good in bright light, so no problems. Exposure was well handled, images seem bright, well exposed. Olympus colour is the reason for going for an Olympus, vibrant saturated colour with plenty of detail.

It served me well, sure the Contax gave me my most memorable shots but this was very handy as it stayed in a pocket.

I shot everything from landscapes to portraits and in-camera Panoramas from villagers in the Punjab to villagers in the mountains of The Hindu Kush and The Chitral Gol National park. The Hindu Kush is seldom visited by outsiders, I’ve visited almost every high Mountain range in the world (The Andes, Himalaya, Karakoram but not The Pamirs) and The Hindu Kush is the most beautiful and magical out of them all. You can see my Fujifim Professional GA645 on Fujichrome Velvia RVP50 photos and write up here

The Jewel in The Crown of The Hindu Kush is its highest peak – Tirich Mir Lord of Shadows, a haunted (so say the locals and so say I after the paranormal and supernatural experiences I had there) 7,708 meters, 25,289 ft high mountain.

Flaws

Nothing is perfect, and neither is this camera. There are a few flaws, which become obvious the more one uses it.

The first flaw is the lack of an exposure lock button independent of focus lock. Locking focus also locks exposure, and this is a simple technique to get used to, but on occasions I would’ve liked to lock exposure as I do on the Contax G2 with a flick of a switch.

Secondly is it’s reliance upon menu systems, I would’ve liked a button for ISO, another for metering and another for Macro mode, but one has to enter the menu system for these, which to be honest, is pretty quick easy and coherent in use.

I would’ve liked a viewfinder.

Finally, the in camera JPEG are on the warm side and with too much Noise Reduction which destroys the images, detail is smeared, especially in landscapes, and there’s no option to turn NR off! It’s crazy! This forces me to use RAW to switch NR off which I hate doing as I’d rather get the shot right in camera rather than tatting around tweaking the photo on the computer with a small compact (I shoot RAW on my DSLR) This is a shame, as the Olympus XZ-1 is easy to set up to get lovely travel shots. BUT, these are minor distractions.

Final thoughts

The Olympus XZ-1 is a fantastic camera, quick, discreet, with a superb lens. I enjoyed using it, and I include a selection here. I took everything from a few candids, to the odd scenic and especially my favourite black background portraits, I was able to shoot quickly and discreetly. The photographs aren’t quite larger frame standard, but they’re good considering this is a small sensor compact digital camera, and it’s a superb travel camera! Loved it and wouldn’t mind another or even the later XZ-2.

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