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Having used a fair few film compacts I've narrowed down the 3 best I beleive.
Ricoh gr1/s/v the smallest, fastest and dharpest. Unfortunately they're a bit fragile and the view finder ain't great also I've yet to find somewhere to repair them cheaply.
MJU II, small, fast, pretty damn cheap, rugged as shit and with a good lens. Unfortunately it's ugly and the flash settings can be annoying plus it dosnt give the same amount of control as others.
Nikon 35ti, super sharp, really tough, good battery life, manual zone fusing with dial and real pretty. Unfortunately they're a bit big and quite slow compared to the other two. Edit: this also has one of the best exposure meters ever and a large, clear and bright Finder.
I'm considering buying a fuji Klasse w this year, hoping it combines aspects of the other 3 but with current production reliability and warranty.
I can't mention the yashica or contact T series much because of limited experience of them but I have had a play around and wasn't convinced to buy them when I saw the prices they command vs cameras I thought handled nicer.
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1.
..unfortunatly have never used the Ricoh's. I'm sure they're great. They're getting old, and having a lot of issues I heard, from display stopping to work to complete sudden death.
I was too scared to invest a lot of money in this.2.
Yeah it's great. As I mentioned mine didn't seem to be as sharp as others, but still good.
Then I got light leaks (as you can see in the picture upthread), so I'm not using it much now.
It really is small, rugged (and waterproof), also light - you can just throw it in a bag -
which really is a big plus as it means you'll actually have it with you a lot of times.
Oh, the hidden spot meter mode is great as well!3.
Never used these either, basically because they're expensive
(apart from the T4 I only bought cameras that go for less than 100, most of them for less than 50)
Pictures I've seen from them are pretty fucking sharp.It's already in the range of "premium" compact cameras for me.
If you're willing to pay a few hundred, there for sure are some real gems out there -
Leica minilux, Minolta TC-1, Contax T / T2 / T3 - I'd also put the Ricohs and Nikon 35Ti in that category.
There are more, and especially if you look at manual focus, there are a lot more great compacts.Anyway, of the stuff I still do on film - I do it with SLRs if I want excellent quality.
Compacts for me are for fun now, it's ok if they're not in the premium category, as I'm not willing to pamper a precious little princess of a compact camera.
salad
As far as I know it's the same lens design but not the same lens.
T3's lens is bigger, has different coatings, and it's aperture can open up to 2.8.
Anyways, both are excellent, and as I said I did own both and sold the T4 because it gave me money for a lot of film and I was very happy with the quality of T3's pictures.
If money is no object then it's just a question whether you wand a smaller (but fragile) or bulkier (but rugged / waterproof) camera.