Every time I see an XA I find it remarkable how Olympus’ engineers managed to fit a rangefinder mechanism in there. The camera is TINY.
Yoshihisa Maitani and Olympus’s r&d as a whole were incredible. The OM-1 disrupted the entire SLR industry when it came out and was the first time in nearly 15 years anyone was able to really take some attention away from the Nikon F.
The only comparable camera was the Contax T. Nothing anyone else ever tried was able to come close to the XA. I also think it played a huge factor in the premium compact boom that came over a decade later. And I haven’t even touched on the Pen models — Olympus was really something special. If their lenses (although charming in their own way) had been better they would have been untouchable, but they weren’t quite able to compete with Nikon, much less Leica in that aspect.
Really hope you enjoy the XA! So nice to have something so capable in your pocket.
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not on the XA yet, but I’ve already finished a roll and I’m gonna send it in soon - these are on the nikon l35af
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first three are pulling me through the fourth wall
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thanks! the first one I took at pismo beach and it’s my nephew standing out there, the other two were taken on this incredibly foggy morning on my ride to work
this was a weird roll for me to develop because it has the last pictures I took of mimi on it and it has stuff from like, december of last year on it so I was kind of putting off developing it for a while but I finally managed to send it in and I’m glad I did
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I finally got my external hard drive in the mail. I don’t think I am in the mood to instantly start sorting through my photos and posting stuff here, but there’s a few I’ve got which I already exported and have sorted in a folder, outside my catalog of RAWs.
Some pictures from the Grand Canyon. Apologies if I’m reposting any, I know I posted a few already, I’m trying to post new ones but too lazy to go back and make sure:
For this one, I had my cousin pose per my request. Was going for the “sea captain staring out at the impending storm” cliche.
Some other, non-GC-related photos:
The last two are an odd resolution (16:9, as opposed to 3:2) since I was using them as wallpapers at some point, and as stated, not in the mood to go digging around for the full size originals atm.
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Yuppp this one right here that’s the shit that keeps my blood flowing, this photo really got me. Ty
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I used to dabble in photographing clouds and managed to snap this one recently. Super beautiful cirrus that was only there for an hour or so. The photo is pretty crappy by comparison but it looked great in the flesh.
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Any tips for taking somewhat decent photos in various lighting conditions using a kit lens with a DSLR using mostly automatic settings?
Don’t use automatic settings, basically. Sorry, I know that’s not the answer you’re looking for. With standard equipment and auto, you’re basically limited to soft and consistent lighting. Which, to be fair, is the vast majority of stuff you’ll be doing during normal weather in the daytime.
But if you’re looking to get shots in very dark scenes, or scenes where one part of the photo is significantly brighter/darker than the rest, you’ll pretty much need to start messing with stuff manually.
You say “mostly automatic”. What settings are you currently manually setting, and which are the ones you are avoiding? I might be misunderstanding to what extent you mean “auto”.
Edit after writing my next post: I forgot to mention, you also have no control over depth of field with auto mode. Manual lets you control aperture, and ergo depth of field.
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No you nailed it. Pretty much full auto. I got to the point where I was taking decent macro shots with a macro lens in very bright situations using some manual settings (mostly aperture and actually using the DOF preview button). But for the most part, I just use full auto lately when I want to use the “nice” camera over my smart phone.
Gotcha. Yea, it’s super easy and tempting to use auto-mode. However, even in settings where you can get away with it, keep in mind that many DSLRs will only create RAW format files when you shoot manually. Auto sticks you with JPG. Some cameras might behave otherwise, so apologies if you have one of those where this isn’t true, but thought I would mention it. RAW format is 500% superior to shooting in JPG.
If you are intimidated by the settings, I think my two biggest pieces of advice is a) don’t overthink it, and b) practice, practice, practice. DSLRs provide you nice tools to aid you in getting the right settings, most notably the exposure indicator. It is your friend, and if you pay attention to it, things are much simpler than you may realize. I like to take a few shots both over and under exposed, just in case I disagree with the camera’s opinion on what the perfect exposure is. This often happens in scenes with tons of reflected light, like snow or sand.
Some cameras let you adjust the exposure meter to compensate for that, but my camera had no such feature, and I just got used to knowing how to work around it, and I’d argue that getting a concrete “feel” for it, rather than relying on my camera for that, made me a better photographer.
I also recommend just making a point of taking many shots of the same scene using different apertures, and adjusting the shutter speed to compensate, as practice. Being able to manage the aperture is extremely useful, since the control it gives you over depth of field can make for some neat effects. You can’t do that with auto. I forgot to mention that in previous post as something you are limiting yourself to with auto.
Every once in a while, you might need to adjust the ISO. I only ever do this for extremely low light scenes, but it makes a huge difference, especially if you don’t have a tripod. Changing the ISO can mean a 1/60 shutter speed, vs a whole second in some scenarios.
Really, between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, you can photograph 95%+ of all the things you’d ever want. The other settings you can honestly just ignore and leave on their defaults, and you’ll be fine. Until you aren’t fine, but by that point, you’ll be used to managing the big three, and delving into the rest won’t seem as overwhelming.
Tl;dr, don’t overwhelm yourself. Just focus on learning how to control aperture and shutter speed, and when you’ve got that down, start messing with ISO to catch shots you might not feasibly get otherwise. Between those, you’ll be golden.
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Thanks for the quick primer! I’ll give these tips a shot. At least we live in an age where you can waste as many shots as you want learning!
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A+ , backyard wildlife photography rules