Continuing on my Olympian historical adventure and revisiting the powerhouse’s milestones in camera innovation, I’ve purchased the Olympus XA1 from a seller in the Netherlands! This little beast is adorable and I’m expecting many a great things from this little mechanical and non-battery operated wonder.
The first thing to know is that this is the lesser-liked sibling of the Olympus XA series, and not to be confused with the original XA. I admit, I only realised this as soon as I had the camera in my hands. It’s not to say that I’m disappointed with the camera, certainly not! I was caught off guard by it. Reviews are mixed for the XA1. Some say it’s too limited by its settings and really just serves as a casual point-and-shoot with no professional quality to it. Others, on the hand, have proven its performance through gorgeous, sharp and well-framed shots. This prove a very good point, doesn’t it (you know, the whole thing about how it’s not just in the capability of the camera but also the skills of the photographer)?
I only had to do minimal wiping and cleaning to get it squeaky clean. Apart form the foam seals, which have almost become nothing, the Olympus XA1 is in pristine condition, thanks to good care given by the previous owner. There are substantial scratch marks on the flash, for which I cannot determine what might have caused it. It doesn’t affect the performance of the flash anyway, so I’ll only see it as a cosmetic flaw. Speaking of the flash, this is a particularly unique camera for the way its flash attaches and detaches from the right side of the camera when look front at it. Via a small screw, it firms sits next to it and syncs perfectly with the camera.
The other magical thing about this camera is that it is selenium-metered, meaning it doesn’t require any batteries to operate the camera, apart from a AA battery required for the flash. I’ve never owned a non-battery film camera before, so this will be surely leave interesting impressions and results. I will follow up with another post to talk about my experiences with the camera so far, and see if its serving its purposes in capturing anything video-games related.
Freshly loaded with film and battery fitted in the flash, I am finally in a position where I have an actual film camera to start using to capture any video-gaming related thing I see. The disposable camera phase has proven a lot of fun and has given me an idea of what results I can expect from film photography. I have another disposable camera I’ve just used up yesterday, so I cannot wait to make time to drop by the film developers and see what images I can add to my portfolio. In the meantime, enjoy the photos below!
