Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
When I use the XA, I feel it's great for direct sun: as I know an absolute setting of aperture and speed for a given film, let's say Tri-X, I just set it at a small aperture and exposures are fine most of the time, at near 1/250, and I get what I really want: I prefocus it at 8 feet and get huge depth of field, so I never focus but just look and shoot. Very easy and very fast. No one takes the camera seriously in public. No sound. Great. Not as perfect or as controlled as bigger equipment, but certainly a lot lighter and smaller than AE SLR's and AE RF's... The lens is good enough for me at f/8 and f/11.
But for shadows, overcast, or a bit lower light levels, the XA doesn't shine that much for doing the same, because of its limited ISO 800, a film speed that doesn't allow me to shoot at fast speeds and small apertures unless I'm under direct sun... So for a few months I've been shooting 3200 film with my RF's and my SLR's for the same relaxing, prefocusing and huge depth of field style when I feel like going that way in overcast days...
Some days ago I started a couple of threads asking for help to decide which small camera similar to XA could be used to pair with it so I could be ready for sun and shadows anytime, even in places where showing off bigger or better cameras is not the most recommendable idea... Whenever any of those options started to give me the possibility of deciding aperture manually, those cameras started to grow in size, and their price started to become close to that of real RF's, so I couldn't find a real XA for 3200 film that made sense...
The problem (my problem) with best lenses' point-and-shoots without manual aperture, is that to freeze action they tend to use on their AE the widest apertures: precisely what I don't want... Then last night I thought: a way for me to get enough depth of field, even on widest apertures, is finding a slow lens camera with slow enough widest aperture so it's able to use 3200 film... I started to check brands and read some reviews from photographers, and clearly was Olympus the company that made the most successful cameras in that style: lots of models, and millions sold for decades, and all came from the same mother: the XA...
Here I checked all the models:
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Olympus_mju_Stylus_Epic#Flagship_Metal_model
I looked for a model with the slowest lens possible for depth of field, and I tried to choose a relatively new model, because that way the camera could be found, in general, in the best possible shape... Finally I went for the Olympus Stylus Wide 100, with a 28-100 lens: one of the last models made, just a few years old... It was made a decade after the Olympus Stylus Epic shown on Stephen Gandy's article on compact cameras, and more than two decades after the classic XA...
I'm pretty sure its lens will be more than good enough stopped down, as my 3200 film will be setting “manually” a small aperture for enough sharpness and depth of field for me, because its top speed is just 1/640. Aperture closes to f/18... Perfect for controlling TMZ's high sensitivity...
So this is the end of the story: I found my low light XA. There was only one on ebay, a mint one, so I hurried up and ordered it a moment ago... I think I was lucky to find a recent model, and precisely the latest of the only two models they made with a 28mm zoom... The price was just the same I paid for my XA: $50 + shipping.
The Oly XA & Tri-X for sun, and the Oly Wide 100 & TMZ for shadows, will make a powerful team for prefocused ultralight shooting, just anywhere anytime.
Cheers,
Juan
But for shadows, overcast, or a bit lower light levels, the XA doesn't shine that much for doing the same, because of its limited ISO 800, a film speed that doesn't allow me to shoot at fast speeds and small apertures unless I'm under direct sun... So for a few months I've been shooting 3200 film with my RF's and my SLR's for the same relaxing, prefocusing and huge depth of field style when I feel like going that way in overcast days...
Some days ago I started a couple of threads asking for help to decide which small camera similar to XA could be used to pair with it so I could be ready for sun and shadows anytime, even in places where showing off bigger or better cameras is not the most recommendable idea... Whenever any of those options started to give me the possibility of deciding aperture manually, those cameras started to grow in size, and their price started to become close to that of real RF's, so I couldn't find a real XA for 3200 film that made sense...
The problem (my problem) with best lenses' point-and-shoots without manual aperture, is that to freeze action they tend to use on their AE the widest apertures: precisely what I don't want... Then last night I thought: a way for me to get enough depth of field, even on widest apertures, is finding a slow lens camera with slow enough widest aperture so it's able to use 3200 film... I started to check brands and read some reviews from photographers, and clearly was Olympus the company that made the most successful cameras in that style: lots of models, and millions sold for decades, and all came from the same mother: the XA...
Here I checked all the models:
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Olympus_mju_Stylus_Epic#Flagship_Metal_model
I looked for a model with the slowest lens possible for depth of field, and I tried to choose a relatively new model, because that way the camera could be found, in general, in the best possible shape... Finally I went for the Olympus Stylus Wide 100, with a 28-100 lens: one of the last models made, just a few years old... It was made a decade after the Olympus Stylus Epic shown on Stephen Gandy's article on compact cameras, and more than two decades after the classic XA...
I'm pretty sure its lens will be more than good enough stopped down, as my 3200 film will be setting “manually” a small aperture for enough sharpness and depth of field for me, because its top speed is just 1/640. Aperture closes to f/18... Perfect for controlling TMZ's high sensitivity...
So this is the end of the story: I found my low light XA. There was only one on ebay, a mint one, so I hurried up and ordered it a moment ago... I think I was lucky to find a recent model, and precisely the latest of the only two models they made with a 28mm zoom... The price was just the same I paid for my XA: $50 + shipping.
The Oly XA & Tri-X for sun, and the Oly Wide 100 & TMZ for shadows, will make a powerful team for prefocused ultralight shooting, just anywhere anytime.
Cheers,
Juan
