Titoy wrote:
What would be a better buy, an Olympus 35 SP, the one with a 42 mm F
1.7 lens and manual or program mode or an Olympus XA?
=======================================================================
My 2 cents on this:
A long time ago I owned an XA but passed it on to my wife. I almost
became the owner of a 35SP, last year, when I ordered one from the
"Wide Angle" site in the Netherlands. It got as far as the Post Office
in Jakarta before it "disappeared"; however, I was recompensed by the
Indonesian Postal Service. I took some trouble to find out what I could
about the 35SP before I ordered it.
These two cameras are very different, of course, the XA being tiny and
the 35SP being excessively large and heavy for what it is. Both have
rangefinders for focusing and both have good reputations for the
quality of their lenses. There is no doubt, though, that the 7-element
35SP 42/1.7 lens is better than the 35/2.8 XA lens.
The dedicated flashguns (A11 or A16) for the XA are not so good and
there is no hot shoe or other means of connecting an external flash
unit, whereas the 35SP has full external flashgun capabilities. The XA
has aperture priority only, whereas the 35SP offers the alternatives of
program mode or manual, as you say. Furthermore, the light meter of the
35SP is active in manual mode, which is unusual for a camera of that
vintage. There has been some controversy as to whether the 35SP can
also be used in shutter priority mode but the general consensus on this
seems to be that it cannot; Olympus certainly never claimed that this
feature was available.
I found the XA to be too small and fiddly for my own use but I have
rather fat fingers. The XA has plenty of devotees and I'm sure it's a
fine camera in the right hands, especially if flash is not required. I
understand that some vignetting can be expected with the XA but I never
noticed it on the one I owned.
Regards,
=====
Ray
"The trouble with resisting temptation is
you never know when you'll get another chance!"
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