Olympus XA light fall off?

[Kragmeister]

Greetings,

Just got my first test roll back from my "new" XA. The exposures in general were all pretty even. Only problem is that some shots seemed to exhibit light fall off. Here are a couple attached.

One shot was at the minimum focus distance and the other was shot at about 8 feet. I shot most of the roll wide open at f2.8 with varying shutter speeds.

Also, I did nothing to the contrast/curves of the scans, they are as Walgreens scanned 'em except that I lowered the bit depth to decrease the file size for upload.

Any one else notice this sort of thing with their XA?

Later,
Greg

 

[filmgoerjuan]

Funnily enough, someone else was complaining about this issue on Flickr. The general consensus seemed to be that at a wider aperature and longer focus, the vignetting was worse.

 

[Graham Line]

The falloff diminishes quite a bit at f4 and is pretty much gone by f5.6.
Bear in mind that good as it is, the XA was sold as a compact snapshot camera and is optimized for daylight midrange subjects. The fact that the falloff looks offcenter is a concern, but you'd have to examine the negative to know if that's really the case.

 

[Kragmeister]

Hey Joe,

I think you are right about the fall off diminishing at smaller apertures. I was looking over the test roll (expired Fuji 100 color at $0.49 from a bargain bin) and the other shots that I know I shot at f5.6 and f8 were even. I tend to shoot wide open in available light so this may be an issue for me. I was looking to use the XA as an alternative to my Bessa R with 35mm Classic.

Later,
Greg

 

[VictorM.]

My XA, long since expired, had noticeable falloff at every aperture. Supposedly, the 'early' serial numbers were worse than the later ones. The falloff wasn't a problem in b&w because I simply burned and dodged it away.

 

[Trius]

As Victor implies, their is variation between XA samples. I wasn't aware it was related to early/late serial numbers, but that makes sense. I've seen wide-open shots posted here in another thread that looked quite good. In any event, just be aware of your particular XA's quirks. All-in-all, given the size, utility and ease-of-use, it's a wonderufl camera. jvx and I think it's the best camera ever made. 😀

I have used it both on a tripod for serious landscape shots, and from the hip while walking to do stealth/candid shots. Versatility.

 

[Rob]

That was very common on the XA camera...

 

[Kragmeister]

I've attached another from the test roll. This was shot at f5.6 and I used the +1.5 switch to compensate for backlighting (another test). No noticable fall off on this shot.

I'm really not happy with the quality of the shots, but I have a suspicion it is due to the fact that I used expired Fuji Superia 100 that I got from a bargain bin at $0.49 per roll. That is probably why the contrast is blown out on the entire roll....or the drug store did a lousy job 😉 . I have to try the camera with good film I guess.

Now I wonder what is an early serial number? Heck, I can't seem to find a serial number on mine....

Later,
Greg

 

[Graham Line]

This example was probably shot at about 1/125 at 5.6 on Fuji NPS. The scan is only 72 dpi, so it looks rougher than the original, which is about a 2/3 crop of a full frame.