Chetan vs. the Olympus XA Film Camera
Chetan has been a photographer since 2017 and started shooting film in late 2020 a little while after his father passed away as a way of connecting with him. It wasn’t until he picked up a manual SLR (single lens reflex) camera in 2022 that he truly began to understand the exposure triangle (the relationship between your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to get a well exposed image) and how film generally behaves.
Golden hour seemed perfect on this sunny day in SouthEnd near CLT Shooters Studios. Chetan was doing a review of the Olympus XA film camera using Kodak Portra 400 film, just to get a general idea of the user experience and image quality.
The Olympus XA is a camera that operates in aperture priority where you’re able to manually choose the aperture but the camera automatically chooses the shutter speed and ISO for you. Chetan states most of his photos were shot at f2.8 except for about one or two and would take a guess that the shutter speed was between 1/250-1/500. He had his photos developed and scanned at The Photooutfitters here in Charlotte.
Prior to heading on his walk to test out the camera, Chetan dropped the Olympus and exposed two of the frames on the roll film. This ultimately ended up being one of his biggest challenges because it led him to feel anxious and discouraged the whole time he was taking photos. Yet, he persevered! He told himself that even if the camera is broken, it would still be good practice to go out and shoot and focus more on the shooting experience rather than the expectation of the final outcome. The only challenge he had with the camera itself was the fact that the minimum distance is 2.8ft. It stopped him from getting closeups and the compositions he would’ve gotten otherwise.
Chetan’s general assessment: “Overall I would recommend the XA to someone looking for a good super compact everyday carry rangefinder to capture candid moments and whatever else comes your way in your everyday life. The biggest con of the XA is build quality and the fact that since it’s an electronic camera, once the motherboard dies, Game Over.” Follow on instagram @filmphotography.exe
Written by Carmen Cummings (@naturalescenes)
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