After months of dithering, I have finally picked up an original Olympus XA – the much respected rangefinder version of the XA series. There are lots of resources about these excellent cameras online but for a start here is the photoethnography one. I’ve been shooting with the fixed focus version – the XA2 – for a while now, and the quality of the optics on these tiny point and shoot cameras is amazing.
Admittedly I carried a Lomo LC-A around for years, but they’ve now become such a cult item that they retail at close to £300! So in my opinion any aspiring ‘street photographer’ would be better off picking up an XA2 (which has almost identical fixed focus zones / AE mode as the Lomo) on ebay for a tenth of that price. I know people dig the Lomo’s vignette-ing and light fall-off but seriously… £300 for a now largely plastic camera built in China? The XAs give you all the camera-in-pocket convenience and spontaneity but with a hugely superior lens.