Moose,
Thank you very much for your advice in details.
XA is a very good choice as your description. I concern something about the
focus system, without hotshoe. As my experience for SP35, the overlap focus
system is not pretty good as hard to focus in slight low light environment.
I understood it's a 30 years old camera design. I worry about same situation
on XA. I know there is an additional flash for XA, but no bounce feature.
I'd prefer a compact camera with hotshoe for shooting my family members
outside.
Another point I concerned, the details at shadow. I don't know how's 70's
Japanese lens but it's pretty good for my Rolleiflex T which production in
1975~1976.
I had owned Muj-II. It's a good compact camera for snapshot. Very good image
quality under sunlight, but I don't satisfy its performance with flash. I
can't control the flash power, always a bit over-exposure. I prefer I can
control anything for the shot, aperture, shutter speed, ISO speed, flash
power ........
I cannot escape the slow operation of Rollei 35. Let me thinking &
researching more information.
Thanks again, Moose. Your advice is functionally.
---
Michael
2008/10/8 Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
> 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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