I had it all planned when I purchased an Olympus XA2 camera. My only preparation was to learn how the simple 3 position focus system translates to distance in feet. An online search helped with that information. I have a roll of Fujicolor 200 ready for when the camera arrives.
The camera arrived and tested well. The shutter worked, flash fired, and looked fine cosmetically. Ready for a stroll around the neighborhood to shoot a test roll with the Fujicolor film.
Only one problem-I cheapened out! I got the hair-brained idea to use a compact digital camera and PRETEND that I'm using the Olympus XA2 with these rules.
- Don't shoot anything closer than 3 feet away
- Leave the camera at the 35mm focal length (equivalent)
- Try finding subjects at various distances to practice estimating which of the 3-position focus settings on the XA2 I would have used
- Shoot subjects that I would have taken with the XA2 on this neighborhood stroll
- Post process the way I would have for scanned film
I decided to use a Canon S100 custom set to the 35mm equivalent focal length which turns out be 7.49mm on this camera with a 1/1.7" size sensor.
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| Similar sizes, but I do miss out on the OVF |
The Canon S100 photos were shot in RAW and auto exposure with auto white balance.
When the images were imported into Adobe Lightroom the photos did not look as if they were shot with film, but I made some edits to the tone curve, reduced the sharpening, added grain, and set the white balance to daylight. From these values I created a film preset. I liked the preset results better anyway. A bit more grain was added on the black and white conversions.
I don't know what shutter speed and aperture the XA2 camera would have used, but many of the Canon S100 photos were shot at ISO 80 and f4 with the differing shutter speeds depending on the light. As I write this article, I notice the final color shots probably resemble Ektar 100 film more than Fujicolor 200.
You can perhaps visualize which one of the three focus settings you would have set on the XA2 for these subjects,
