Dusk Etc.

I recently picked up an Olympus XA again, after a hiatus of two years or so. And during a week of using it and seing the first roll of my Olympus 35 RC developed, I realized that I feel priviliged to use the two best compact rangefinder cameras, hands down.

These first pictures were the first taken with new XA.

They were all taken in Gothenburg on a grey October day.

The camera has a 35 mm wide lens which I am very accustomed to use, since I had my old XA always with me for almost ten years. The wide angle invites the surrounding context into the picture narrative. A 50 mm lens would cover a more narrow field, allowing a more concentrated picture.

The Olympus RC that I've only begun to use has been a wonderful aquaintance. I like the focusing very much - it having a very short throw much like the XA. The best pictures from the first roll were also taken in very cloudy weather - even dusk.

The Olympus 35 RC camera has a 42 mm lens, which for me doesn't at all seem wide. It is a focal length that I've become very accustomed to, using it on my digital camera all the time.

The Minolta Hi-matic C camera sports a 40 mm lens, which is entirely within my comfort zone. Below are some recently developed pictures.

I like the Hi-matic C a lot. It looks cool with its minimalistic design and the green button above the lens, which is what you press when you want to collapse or pop the lens out.

Below are a couple of medium format pictures made with my Zenobia, which is a foldable bellows camera from the 1950s. It can only make 4,5x6 cm images on 120 film but as a photographer you are in full control of your exposures - except for focus accuracy. The film is Ilford HP4. By the way, all pictures taken with 35 mm film cameras is exposed on Fomapan 400 ASA.

Thanks for reading! Please don't hesitate to comment below. And visit my shop getOurBooks at Etsy.

By the way, you should support the new Reflex analogue camera through their Kickstarter campaign.