The Olympus XA2 has, for decades, been a popular small 35mm film compact you can carry around in your pocket. An excellent piece of design, it’s simple to operate with zone focusing and a respected f/3.5 35mm fixed lens. Having shot many photos with one, I looked for an inexpensive digital equivalent with the same convenient body size and the largest sensor possible.
I’ve spent the last year and a half relearning how to shoot film. I learned four years ago originally shooting, developing, and printing B&W. The last 9 months I’ve shot almost exclusively medium format, fully mechanical cameras. I never really had an interest in point and shoot cameras, until I found this Olympus and a Canon Sure Shot at an estate sale. After cleaning out the horribly corroded battery terminals, I discovered they both worked perfectly after sitting for what must have been a few years unused.
About ten years ago my boyfriend offered me a very weird looking camera, an Olympus Xa2. At that time, I had been shooting digital for about three years and was a super-amateur photographer. I was still learning and after playing around with the camera a bit, the “point & shoot” method was just not doing it for me. My challenges in photography were still extremely technical and eventually I lost interest. The camera was forgotten.
Since this morning, I’m the proud owner of a Ricoh GR1. I’ve really longed to try this camera out, so I thought I would try to give a day by day report or review of my early experiences with it, and how it compares to my current carry everywhere Olympus XA2
This is a story about love! Untainted love, a love so strong and pure….. oh man, I’ve got to stop this gushing. Just concentrate and get down to the basics about why I came to love this tiny lump of glass and plastic. The Olympus XA2 is the third in the line started by Yoshihisa …
Olympus XA2 Review – or why I learned to love a camera – by Frank Lehnen Read More
