Michael Wong wrote:
> I have sold my Panasonic LX-2 & wish to be 100% film shooter. I'm considering
> to get a compact camera for snapshot. I search some information at internet &
> interesting for Rollei 35/35s.
If you really mean for snapshots, that is, casual use, there are two
other cameras I would choose before the Rollei 35.
Having now used both, I believe I made the right choice back all those
years ago in choosing the Olympus XA. The XA is just a tiny bit smaller
than the Rollei, but not enough to matter. It's also a lot lighter and
the design much more pocket friendly, which really does matter to me.
The ZA is complete in itself, with the sliding lens cover protecting
everything that needs it. With the Rollei, one really needs a separate
case, both because of all the lovely mechanical bits tha hang out and
can catch on pockets, etc. and to keep the always on meter from running
down. Speaking of the meter, the Rollei requires those banned mercury
batteries or an adapter, while the XA uses regular silver-oxide cells.
The Rollei is a slow camera to operate. If you leave the lens extended,
it's awkward to carry, if not, it's slow to set up for a shot. As an all
manual camera with match metering, it's slow to operate. All four
settings, focal distance, meter, aperture and shutter speed are
conveniently visible from one viewpoint looking down at the top of the
camera, but nowhere near the viewpoint through the finder.
The XA has a very unusual lens design such that its 35mm lens is fixed
and simply revealed by sliding the cover to the side. So it's always
ready without pulling out and locking. As an aperture preferred
automatic exposure camera, the meter needle in the viewfinder shows the
shutter speed it is selecting. You can't see the aperture setting, but
the unique aperture slide allows one to easily count clicks without
removing the camera from the eye. Whe usig it regularly, the aperture
setting is clear from feeling the slide position.
Then we come to the crucial factor. The XA has a rangefinder used
through the viewfinder. The base is short, but the lens is slightly WA
and it is WAY more accurate than my guessing of distance. Exposure
compensation requires use of the 1.5 stop backlight compensation - easy
to set and hard to forget, or changing the ISO setting, fiddly and easy
to forget to reset.
Bottom line, for snapshot shooting, the XA may be entirely operated by
sliding open the cover and looking through the viewfinder. The Rollei
requires much more fussing.
-----------------
Super bottom line, rangefinder wins, no question, every time, for me.
I've got a manual rangefinder that fits in a flash shoe. On the big,
bulky, heavy Oly Six, sure. Upside down on the bottom of the Rollei,
nope, not for snapshots.
-----------------
Oops, almost forgot to mention long exposures. The Rollei has a B
setting. The XA will auto expose out to 10 seconds or so. I caught a
lightning flash by just setting it on a balcony railing and pushing the
shutter release. The lightning was bright enough to close the shutter.
Oh yeah, the viewfinder window is directly over the taking lens and very
close to it, so there is no lateral parallax error for close-ups and
less vertical than on the Rollei.
My impression is that the XA lens is at least as sharp as the Rollei
Tessar, likely better in the middle range sweet spot. However, I haven't
scanned any of my old XA film, so I can't be sure. The Modern Photo test
showed it to be decent wide open and ... well, read the whole report
here. <http://www.diaxa.com/xa/xa.htm>
A couple of things the report doesn't talk about. First, the lens does
vignette at wider apertures. Not too bad, but noticeable. Fortunately,
that's one of the easiest things to correct digitally. Second, I never
found the limited flash ISO settings to be a problem after I figured out
that, like all such flashes, it tends to overexpose the people in one's
snaps if the background is dark or much over a very few feet behind
them. I used 200 ISO film and set the flash for 400 for all those people
inside shots with quite good results.
The second camera I would consider for film snaps is the Oly Stylus
Epic/Mju-II. It's a small AF camera with sliding lens cover like the ZA
and excellent 35/2.8 lens. It's sort of the AF successor to the XA. I've
never owned one, being happy with the XA ( ..well, OK, I have two, just
in case...), but is has an excellent reputation.
> Anybody who experience for this compact camera? Would you please give me some
> advice? I know there are Tessar 40/3.5 & Sonnar 40/2.8, which one is better?
>
I've always been intrigued by the Rollei 35. I finally succumbed to
temptation and traded an OM mount WA zoom to Rick for the Rollei 35 I
assume he has commented on in this thread. I'm glad I did, as I've gone
to primes for WA on OM film cameras and because it's been fun to learn
this odd little camera. It's a delight to hold and play with for anyone
who enjoys precision mechanical photo equipment.
Results so far are from only one roll of ISO 400 film. Between film
grain, choice of subjects and a few obviously missed focus guesses, I
haven't yet seen anything to really impress me with the Tessar lens,
although it's certainly not bad. Pixel peeping may be unnecessary
cruelty to old film cameras?
If I wanted to go out with a film camera in my pocket for snapshots, it
would still be the one I relied on for so many years before my first
pocket digicam, an Oly XA. To me, it's one of those all too rare cameras
that hits a really sweet of matching function to intended use.
Moose
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