The Olympus XA is pretty well known among the film community. I feel like everyone I know that shoots film has either owned one before or currently owns one. It’s the smallest rangefinder camera you can find. When I saw someone I knew selling it for a good price I snagged it immediately. It’s quite an affordable camera so I was able to easily buy it on a whim. In reviews people complain about how the size and form factor can be too extreme and cause you to take a shot with your finger in the lens, or accidentally trigger the shutter button, etc. but I find I have no issues. Maybe because my hands are small compared to the average population. I shot a test roll of Delta 400 through it and everything looks good. I developed this in Xtol 1:1.
I find it really easy to grow carrots here. Loosen the soil before planting, and be patient with germination.
Since it’s so pocketable, I’m going to try and make a habit of bringing it with me everywhere.
Remember when I made that post proclaiming I dialed down my black and white process? Turns out I quickly realized shortly after I made that post that I was lying and black and white film development is a never ending journey of experimentation. Anyways I picked up some Rodinal developer recently since I realized the crunchy, grainy look of Rodinal has been appealing to me lately.
Here’s some pictures of Delta 400 shot at box speed, outdoor shots I believe had a yellow filter. Deved in Rodinal 1+50, 25C at roughly 15 minutes. (IYKYK)
If you notice these two rolls are both Delta 400 but I used different developers and that resulted in a slightly different look. Of course this isn’t an apples to apples comparison because I was also using different lenses, but if you’re like me and you stare at black and white film pictures all day then you start seeing the nuances in the rendering. As a reminder, you can click on the photos to enlarge them and examine them more closely.
The reason I bought Rodinal was because I recently developed a roll of Tri-X in XTOL and didn’t like how smooth and clinical looking it looked, especially when I paired it with a modern, digital lens. At that point if my film pictures look like that I might as well just shoot digital and convert it to black and white.
I also edited all these pictures after scanning by darkening the brightness and further lowering the darks and blacks. I quite like the look of that. (for now)
The only reason I’m shooting Delta 400 is because I was accidentally sent a bunch after buying HP5 online. The seller gave me the option to buy it at a discount instead of returning it so I did that. I’ve been shooting through a few rolls trying to see if I like it. I vastly prefer the more classic film look of HP5 so I think I shall put the Delta 400 to the side and shot HP5 instead. If you look at my older black and white film posts (Cozy Winter Portraits, Everyday Life) they’re all shot in HP5. However since it’s been summer I’ve been shooting a significant amount of color as well too.
I got back from a trip to Europe and shot a bunch of rolls there, I’m a bit intimidated to make a post about it since I have so many pictures I like but I do want to write a post about it eventually. Hopefully I won’t put you to sleep before you scroll to the end of it.