Darkhorse
pointed and shot
Yet another XA thread. And why not? It's a fascinating little camera. I received mine on Monday, and shot a roll on Wednesday with disastrous results. I managed to clean up the shots I liked, but I was somewhat put off by the experience as you can imagine.
It does take some time getting used to handling the camera. It is small and smooth, and it has a hair trigger. Mine came without a strap, and none of my camera straps fit the thing. So, I had to use a strap from a Wii remote. The rangefinder patch was, as you'd expect, faint. But it was usable.
My previous Olympus rangefinders all had better rangefinders. However, the SP was too big, and I didn't like how the RC handled out of focus areas... but I do miss that camera sometimes.
Composing was challenging. The image in the viewfinder can shift around if you're someone like me who wears glasses. Some of these shots were cropped a bit to adjust for that.
As far as the lens goes, it's respectable. Certainly not the sharpest lens there is. However, that's not to say it doesn't render interesting images. that it does. Plus it's plenty sharp for an ordinary print, or web image.
The following images were made with Kodak Ektar 100, and Ilford FP4 Plus. The FP4 was processed with HC110 in 74° for 6 mins. I wanted to use Rodinal but it was unavailable, I'll have to order it from Freestyle I guess.
Metering with this camera was OK. I think it did underexpose a couple of shots, such as above. But it was salvageable.
I'm not the best street shooter. Looking at this one above I totally could've made real use of the mirror on the right and remained inconspicuous to the two women in traditional garb.
All in all it's a respectable camera. As I've mentioned before, I'm planning to go to Paris for work in the near future and wanted to have a small all-film kit (since I already shot the city in digital). I'd have my OM1 loaded with Tri-X in 50mm and the XA loaded with Ektar for color, and wider shots. I think this may work out pretty well.
It does take some time getting used to handling the camera. It is small and smooth, and it has a hair trigger. Mine came without a strap, and none of my camera straps fit the thing. So, I had to use a strap from a Wii remote. The rangefinder patch was, as you'd expect, faint. But it was usable.
My previous Olympus rangefinders all had better rangefinders. However, the SP was too big, and I didn't like how the RC handled out of focus areas... but I do miss that camera sometimes.
Composing was challenging. The image in the viewfinder can shift around if you're someone like me who wears glasses. Some of these shots were cropped a bit to adjust for that.
As far as the lens goes, it's respectable. Certainly not the sharpest lens there is. However, that's not to say it doesn't render interesting images. that it does. Plus it's plenty sharp for an ordinary print, or web image.
The following images were made with Kodak Ektar 100, and Ilford FP4 Plus. The FP4 was processed with HC110 in 74° for 6 mins. I wanted to use Rodinal but it was unavailable, I'll have to order it from Freestyle I guess.
Metering with this camera was OK. I think it did underexpose a couple of shots, such as above. But it was salvageable.
I'm not the best street shooter. Looking at this one above I totally could've made real use of the mirror on the right and remained inconspicuous to the two women in traditional garb.
All in all it's a respectable camera. As I've mentioned before, I'm planning to go to Paris for work in the near future and wanted to have a small all-film kit (since I already shot the city in digital). I'd have my OM1 loaded with Tri-X in 50mm and the XA loaded with Ektar for color, and wider shots. I think this may work out pretty well.
