Olympus XA

Olympus XA
Olympus XA
The XA with an attached A16 flash.
The XA

The Olympus XA was a 35 mm rangefinder camera built by Olympus of Japan. It was one of the smallest rangefinder cameras ever made, together with the Contax T.

It was designed by Yoshihisa Maitani who had joined Olympus Optical Co Ltd in 1956. He was the chief camera designer and managing director of Olympus Optical Co Ltd., having developed a number of legendary cameras during his career. These included the Pen series, the OM series, the XA series, the IS series and the [mju:] series of cameras.

The original model, the XA, was sold from 1979 to 1985. The original XA features true rangefinder focusing, a fast 35mm f2.8 lens, and aperture priority metering. Later cameras, models XA2 to XA4, featured scale focusing instead of rangefinders. Model XA1 used a fixed-focus lens. The Olympus XA is small and light in weight, made with a protected lens for pockets.

  • Olympus XA: small rangefinder with aperture priority 35mm f2.8 lens
  • Olympus XA1: simple mechanical camera with a selenium meter
  • Olympus XA2: scale focus camera, automatic shutter 35mm f3.5 lens
  • Olympus XA3: Same as XA2 with "DX" automatic film speed recognition
  • Olympus XA4: distance focus camera, 28mm wide macro lens

Specifications

XA

  • Lens: 6 elements 5 groups F.Zuiko 35mm
  • Aperture: f/2.8–f/22
  • Shutter: 10s~1/500s leaf shutter
  • Focusing: 0.9m to infinity rangefinder
  • Exposure: aperture-priority metering with +1.5 exposure compensation for backlighting
  • Battery: 2 LR/SR44
  • Size: 102×64.5×40mm
  • Weight: 225g
  • Year: 1979–1985

External links


Stub icon This camera-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.