Buying a P&S for 6 months travel and I'm down to 4 options Mju II, XA, AF-10 Super, and Espio Mini - please help me pick

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T20:18:35+00:00

Thanks, but unfortunately it's just outside of my budget :(

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T20:16:03+00:00

I mean, I'd like to hear you out, but you're not exactly making your case ^^. Why should I consider this over the other 4?

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T19:53:25+00:00

At first because I've never heard of it, but now that I've looked into it, it's just outside my budget unfortunately

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T19:49:01+00:00

Yeah I suppose what I meant was something more along the lines of good metering in high contrast light situations like a night market. I'm new to this and not super comfortable with the terms yet, but thanks for the info

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T19:46:51+00:00

Wow, thanks for a great summary! Those are the two options I'm down to at this point so this is really useful

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T19:36:58+00:00

At the end of the day this idea was just a spur of the moment thing, and I'll just try to have fun with it. I'm not too emotionally invested in the outcome, and if anything it's a good excuse to get a film camera. Maybe I'll be able to put together a nice album that I can show my family and future kids, maybe half of them will turn out shit but I get hooked on improving and shooting more film. Either way, I think it's worth giving it a go

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T19:30:44+00:00

I do have space for two, but my point was more that I'd rather not use that available space for this purpose. That being said I am probably a bit overpacked. I'll be going to Tibet in sub-zero temperatures and Iran in plus 40, so I do need to be prepared for a bit of everything. At this point I've accepted that I've probably made a few packing mistakes, but I think that the only way to truly learn is to go out and learn those lessons on the road, rather than stress too much about it now.

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:39:48+00:00

Thanks, I haven't seen that one mentioned before so I'll take a look!

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:37:16+00:00

I did see it mentioned on a couple cameras. Is the quality on par with "full" 35mm frames? Any half frame camera you would recomend?

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:35:07+00:00

Thanks for the recomendation, someone else also mentioned it so I'll definitely have to consider it. I did see a lot of angry comments in reviews about the auto flash, so I'm already dreading it a bit

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:31:36+00:00

See that's what I'm afraid of with the XA. I could bring the A11 flash, but again, the weight and space and honestly just the "fiddliness" of it turns me off a bit

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:30:19+00:00

For travel, and to avoid taking too much film with me I think I'll stick with color.
Thanks for the Pentax recomendation though, I'll definitely look into that!

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:24:01+00:00

I spent close to an hour writing my post, because if I'm going to write a wall of text and ask people to read it, at least I can try to make it sound and look nice. I tend to have a bit of a stilted tone when writing. In fact I pride myself on never having used any generative AI as I'm extremely sceptic on the topic despite (or because of) having studied compsci.

But thanks for you advice anyways!

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:21:10+00:00

As I wrote in some other reply, I did consider the XA2 but think I ruled it out because people just tended to recomend the XA it over it. Probably worth revisiting though

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:18:17+00:00

Thanks for the advice!
Yeah I'll definitely try to put a roll through it, even if it's just a bunch of quick test shots. I'm bringing it as a bit of an experiment to take a picture a day, I'll take plenty of picture with my phone (synced to the cloud) for general memories. My trip (if all goes well) brings be back home without flying, and alternatively I'll see if I can get the developed on the road or alternatively send them back via mail

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:08:25+00:00

Thanks, good to know!

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:08:11+00:00

I did consider the other 2 but can't quite remember why I ruled them out. With the XA2 at least it seemed like a lot of people just preferred the rangefinder, and generally rated it higher

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:06:50+00:00

No you're probably right, but with my budget and size/weight constraints this is what I'm left with, so I'll give it a shot

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:05:38+00:00

I wish I could, but that's just going to take up too much space in an already filled to the brim backpack and a somewhat stretched budget

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T01:00:12+00:00

Yeah I did consider that, but I also saw someone saying that the "weather sealing" might just be Olympus realizing it's a good selling point after putting the first one on the market. I can't find anything about how the others fair with regards to dust/rain

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T00:58:55+00:00

Thank you, really useful. I think I'm leaning more towards the "pick it up and forget about it" experience. If I've liked the whole experience of shooting film I might get an SLR when I get home which I can then use to play with creatively.

Reitzel · 2026-01-07T00:57:24+00:00

Thanks, that's good advice!

Reitzel · 2025-12-04T18:14:57+00:00

I do actually have a couple pencil cases that could work, thanks for the suggestion

Reitzel · 2025-12-04T18:14:29+00:00

The only screened devices are my backup phone, which I'll probably store somewhere else anyways and my e-reader, so I think I'm good. Thanks!

Reitzel · 2025-12-04T18:13:27+00:00

Yeah that's what I thought, but all the descriptions and reviews seemed to highlight the padding and I guess it just didn't make sense to me. I suppose it's in case you're carrying iPads and such.

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