Olympus XA2; 1981, it was my eleventh birthday present.
I chose it from a selection offered to me in the camera shop that included the Pentax 110 SLR, that I think my Dad wanted, because it was an SLR and diddy, and I think it there was the the first Auto-Focus compact Minolta. I picked the Olympus because it had a removable flash!!! Which seems like a pretty wiered criteria now, but still.
One of the most compact full-frame 35mm film cameras ever made, it was just oh-so-pocket-able, and on the mantra that the 'best' camera is the one in your hand at the time, it went just about everywhere with me for the next two decades. I still have it, and it was only retired because of a rather nasty scratch on the lens, but it WAS after twenty years of teen abuse rather battered!!
Can a point-and-shoot 'compact' be considered a 'serious' camera?
Well, that that begs a lot of ponderation of the question. What I never realised until much later, was that that XA2, in the shop, was actually as or more expensive than an awful lot of what would be considered 'serious' SLR cameras of the time. I recall that, with flash, it was actually a few quid more than the Olympus OM10 my Dad had at the time (Which he later bequeathed to me when I went to uni circa 1990!) It was, by a long way, NOT a 'cheap' camera. When I started to get more 'in' to this photography lark, I discovered that it was actually oft vaunted by many professionals for it's compact size and pocketability, and discreetness, especially for candid and early paperatsi shots. But, because of it's marketing, it sold mostly to non-enthusiasts, and particularly women, wanting something 'good' but not as complicated to try use, as an SLR, and in pretty large numbers, putting it squarely amongst the throng of 'un-serious' point and press compacts. It's lens, though was good, and it's coupled 'automatic' metering system, for the day was very very good, and it could deliver SLR rivalling results, and show how much was in the hands of the operator 'seeing' a photo, not in the mechanics of the machine in their mitts.
My first 'lesson' in photography, then, came circa 1982, I think, when I first went skiing, and the bright white back-ground of the ski-slope 'fooled' the camera's meter, expecting an 'average' 18% grey scene, so it under-exposed everything by a couple of stops. Chap in the mini-lab I went to get my pictures developed then explained, and asked me to show him the camera I was using, and was rather non-condescending about it being a 'P&S' compact, and explained how for such bright conditions I could 'fool' the meter into thinking it was darker than it was, setting the ASA selector to a faster film speed; I think he suggested using the 200ASA setting for 100ASA film.... and unlike my fathers's attempts to 'teach' me photography, and oft sneering at the little XA2, I think still some-what piqued I didn't choose the Pentax 110SLR 'he' had wanted to play with... actually learned me something. Over the following decade, I found more of the cameras inherent 'buffers', like close focus for small-scale models in museums and such, that begged more learning, and eventually my Dad giving me his, by then, 'old' OM10, to extend capability.... but that little XA2 stayed in my pocket another decade.... GREAT little camera, and for 90% of situations, well within its comfort zone.
As said; that first well travelled and teen abused example died of terminal lens scratch some-time just before the millennium, and I was given another, I also still have, by a women in the family who had bought the then 'new' Olympus Mjui, with inbuilt flash, DX coding and motor-wind.... which I am still not convinced was 'progress', but still. Yet another, almost pristine, unused example, was given me by another women , some years later, who had had it in her desk draw a decade or more, when she was raving about these new fangled 'widgetal' thingies, having just spent a ridiculous amount of money on something with the sort of resolution of a petrol-station-disposable, 'cos convenient'?!?!? Which foreshadows internet euphoria fore the things in modern times, presented as 'LOMO', pretty much because they are, now' so often found so cheap in second hand, junk and charity shops, along-side wobbly plastic lens catalogue 'gifts'!!!! Again, showing the common snobery that if it aint an SLR it can't be a 'serious' camera.... but ironically proving how it can still take very 'serious' and oft laudable photographs....
Sort of begs mention of the Voiglander TLR, too. A camera my Grandad bought second hand in a bizarre in Palestine, circa 1946, when he was in the RAF, to take his wedding photo's with, that was subsequently, and I assume, unceremoniously dumped in my mother and uncle & aunt's toy-box for them, and later me, to 'play' with.... that one was pulled down off a shelf where it had been an ornament for many years, when I was in my mid 20's and had a 'junk-shop' camera challenge for night-school, and proved to have very rusty roller's that scratched the film emulsion like a Charlie Chaplin movie, but still. Now, 120 medium format cameras, and the Voiglander name are oft revered, but.... that very serious camera of its era was given to a toddler to 'play' with... and left to rust in a toy-box for thirty years or so, because things with electrickery in them had come along.... and you thunked that that was a 'new' phenomina, with widegetal!
And having mentioned it, the Olympus OM10, as so many other's 'My First SLR' with interchangeable lenses. About the same age as my XA2, it was ten years old when I was given it. Hmmm... JUST because lenses could be swapped, did that make it a 'serious' camera? To many, I suppose the answer is yes; and these days looking like what so many presume a 'serious' camera should, they oft command far better prices, than the humble little XA2 may. With it's Meter-Coupled Automatic Exposure system though, it was, in it's day' not a lot more than a Point & Press you could change lenses on..... much was, and still is, made of the optional 'manual adaptor' to let user manually select the shutter-speed, which IME is actually less refined than leaving the job to the electrickery that can do it in 1/3 stop increments and a lot faster than the user can using the plug-in... but still. It's 50mm f1.8 lens was cracking, and another now revered bit of kit, especially among the MFT adaptor brigade, but in its own era so often swapped out very quickly for a 'zoom'... which 'sort' of begs the conundrum, why buy an interchangeable lens camera, you DON'T actually interchange lenses on, using a one-size fits all 'zoom' permanently stick on the front? Does this oh-so-oft redundant user twidle-ability make it a 'more seriouse' camera? ..... or just more twidle-able? Hmmmm..... like I said, the question begs some ponderation!
Getting precious about the twiddle-ability, some-time in the mid 90's I was given, when it fell out of an attic clearance, a Sigma Mk1, Ricchoc 'copy' M42 SLR. All metal, all manual, with the only 'easement' a through-talking-lens, swing needle light meter. This, is probably, after the XA2 my 'favourite' camera. Old, unloved, and difficult to use, in the mid-90's, it was given to me, because I knew how to set the shutter and aperture on the thing! The fixed, screw-in primes were awkward to a zoom-lens user and again, seemed old fashioned not being quick-detach bayonet fit. Very very much more 'fidle-ability' to exploit, the M42 screw lenses were also incredibly 'rigid' and robust, and at the time, I could, and oft did, pick up different, often great, lenses for the thing, in the camera shop for less than the roll of film I went in for, building up an 'all-prime' period outfit around it, to get precious about..
And there in lies the query... what's a 'Serious' camera?
That little XA2 is oft derided and ridiculed by so many because it was not an SLR, yet it was far from a 'cheap' camera, or an unsophisticated one. It just doesn't beg a lot of user involvement. The OM10, 'could' but oft doesn't actually beg any more thought to use it, and doesn't do much that the little XA2 wont, probably far more easily. The all manual Sigma, begs a lot more user 'faff' to take a photo, and the lack of convenience of prime lenses that are that much more awkward to swap, makes it a very 'serious' bit of kit you HAVE to apply a lot more effort and thought to using... yet it is likely one of the least expensive cameras I have ever had. Queue mention of the electric-Picture-Maker, the Nikon D3200.... bought about half a decade ago, it IS 'the' most expensive camera I have ever handed over cash money for! Even MORE forked out to get the same sort of range of lens coverage I have for old film cameras; A-N-D astounding amount of intricacy in its electrickery, its like every toy on the shop from the days of film, in your hand, today..... and Oh-So-Easy to use and begs so little user involvement....... Seriously 'expensive', and oh-so-easy to get oh-so precious NOT using all that electrik-easement, trying to 'go manual' and use it like my old clock-work Sigma..... does THIS make it 'more' or 'less' serious?
It is, I think all in the eye of the beholder...... which IS photography as a rule, if there ever is one.