National Train Day in Albuquerque provided a nice opportunity to put my newly refurbished XA 2 through its paces. I couldn't find anything to complain about in its performance; it handled a variety of circumstances with aplomb.
Some of the day's events took place at the Wheels Museum which is housed in one of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Shops buildings. The big old buildings which are mostly empty now all have a marvelous quality of light due to the banks of high windows. The shops were famously photographed in the '40s by FSA photographers including Jack Delano.
I don't recall having much previous experience with a three-zone focus camera in the past. I wasn't sure how well such a system would function in low light at medium and close distances. The little Olympus seemed to take it all in stride. I'm thinking I may even like this simpler XA 2 better than the XA rangefinder model, which is a nice camera, but a little fussy in use compared to the XA 2. The XA 2 also has a simpler lens design which seems less prone to vignetting. Four bucks well spent.
3 comments:
An Olympus XA is on my short list. To think I've been avoiding the much easier to come by, much less expensive XA2. Well, no more.
I really like the way the light spills across the hood of that car.
The XA 2 is not as flexible as the full-focusing XA or the auto-focusing mju, but the combination of auto-exposure and zone focus makes it a very fast shooter. A nice Maitani touch is that closing the cover resets the focus to the middle zone so the camera is ready for the shot when you pop the lid.
Great pictures, again. I also like the XA2 better the XA, although sometimes that rangefinder comes handy.
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