Olympus XA and XA-2

Last update on Feb 21th 2016

Olympus engineers made two gems in the 1979-1985 period and the best examples were the XA and XA-2, designed by the legend Yoshihiza Maitani. There were other models like the XA-1, XA-3 and X-A4, but I'll comment just the ones I mentioned before, since I didn't own the other ones.

Olympus XA
(C) Olympus Optical Co.

The XA is a very compact camera with a classy design in black plastic and a sliding protective cover for the lens that turned into a design signature for many other Olympus cameras.

It's a manual focus, aperture priority exposure camera. The focus is done with the help of a short base coincidence rangefinder, visible at the viewfinder center. Also present in the Galilean viewfinder is a scale and a needle for shutter speed indication and a red led for low-speed alert. To be honest, it's a wonderful idea to have a rangefinder but this one was not very precise for wide open apertures at close range.

The aperture is set by a sliding control on the camera front and can be varied from f2.8 to f22

Focus adjust is done by moving a lever just under the lens and there's also a film ASA adjustment near it.

The lens is a razor sharp 6 elements 35mm F2.8 F.Zuiko, and by sharp I mean sharp, but there's some vignetting at F2.8.

There are other controls under the camera body, like the self-timer, a +1.5 stop backlight compensation and the battery test.

The good thing is the fact it uses two LR44 alkaline batteries and they last very long.

It's a quiet camera, very discrete and small enough to fit inside your pocket.

It can be fitted with a small electronic flash unit. It can be screwed on the camera side. It has no hot shoe. There are different flash models, and the more common a the A11 and the A16.

My XA had a recurrent problem with the shutter button. For some reason, the plastic cover sometimes got stuck and need a poke to pop back. This also happens with the XA2.

Olympus XA2

   

Some people complain about the XA being slow to use due to the focus adjustment and aperture setting, and to make those people happy, Maitani decided to design a simpler model. It also cost less than a half of a XA.

The XA-2 has a 35mm F3.5, four elements Tessar like lens. The shorter focal length and smaller maximum aperture made it possible for use without a built-in rangefinder. 

Focus is set by selecting the proper pictogram. When closed, the distance is automatically set to zone 2 (about 5 meter) and thanks to the generous depth of field, it was practically foolproof. The infinity and close focus was there just in case.

There's no information on the viewfinder besides the red led for camera shake warning.

The exposure is fully automatic, varying from 2s at f3.5 to 1/750s at f22 and ASA setting from 25 to 800, a very wide range.

Back to the XA2 lens, it's simpler but not worse than the XA one. Actually, my impression is that the XA2 lens is sharper than the XA's one. In my opinion, the XA2 is a more pleasant camera to use than the XA.

The XA2 was the true successor of the Olympus Trip 35 in my opinion. It's simple, with the same zone focus system, a terrific lens and very affordable. 

One drawback of this camera family is the inability of using filters. It would be great to be able to use a yellow or orange filter for black and white photography.

Olympus XA2 with A11 flash

For me, it's much better than the Minox 35 and the Lomo LCA and costs a fraction of them.

The XA series eventually evolved into the mju (Stylus) series of autofocus cameras from the '90s with the same clamshell design and wonderful optics.