As you may have deduced I am a “vintage” kind of guy when it
comes to some things, especially cameras, but I do appreciate modern
technology. One of the things I appreciate most about modern cameras is the auto-focus.
Yes, auto-focus. The bane of DSLR’s when they first came out (for me anyway) and
the thing that made me hate them more than anything else has become one of my
favorite features.
How can this be? Well, as we get older a strange thing
happens to our eyes. They just don’t work as well as they used to. Where I
notice it most is shooting cameras and guns. Both require the ability to very
quickly switch back and forth between seeing far and near in order to properly
sight or aim and compose and focus. If you wear glasses with bi-focals or
progressive lenses this ability is complicated even further.
It is mainly for this reason I have been experimenting with
various 35mm film cameras over the past couple years and I think I have finally
found the perfect camera for me, but that’s a story for another blog post.
The Olympus Stylus introduced in the 1990’s, is an unassuming
but surprisingly advanced 35mm point & shoot camera that reminds me a lot
of the Olympus XA2, introduced in the early 1980’s. Both cameras are fully
automatic with incredibly sharp 35mm f3.5 Zuiko lenses that can handle a wide
range of shooting situations with little or no thought required from the
photographer. The XA2 requires that you set the ASA or ISO whereas the Stylus
takes care of that for you. The big difference though is that while the XA2 is
zone focus, which is easy enough as long as you can properly estimate the
distance from the subject (and remember to do it), the Stylus is a true and
very accurate auto-focus camera. Oh, and
while the Stylus comes with a decent built-in flash you have to attach the
dedicated A-11 flash unit to the XA2 if you need it.
…but what about the most important part – the pictures?
That will be the subject of my next blog post.
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