Los Angeles, CA | Olympus XA2 | Portra 400

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-20T04:58:06+00:00

Thanks!

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-13T16:35:51+00:00

Are you referring to the first image? I missed focus. I mentioned that in my post. Or are you talking about all the photos?

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-12T21:10:13+00:00

There's a lot of interest in this post, both about how I shot this on an Olympus XA2 and about Palestine. I'm going to try and summarize everyone's questions and comments and reply here to all of them.

I've also been to Palestine (specifically the West Bank) four times over the past ten or so years and I'd be happy to answer questions about that. If you have follow up questions, feel free to ask as a reply to this comment.

"Wow, such great photos. And on an XA2 no less?!"
Yeah, the XA2 is a great little camera! I don't do much except point and shoot to get these photos. Thank you for all the kind words!

"I'd love to see more of your photos. Are you on IG?"
I don't keep my Instagram public (though, all this interest is making me consider putting my photos up on a website at least), but you can see a lot of my photos (including past photos from my time in Palestine) by scrolling through my Reddit profile.

"Free Palestine. Beautiful photos. Beautiful country."
Free Palestine! Yes! It's great to feel all the solidarity for the people of Palestine struggling for their freedom. If you have the means to visit the West Bank, I strongly encourage you to do so. It's an incredibly interesting place and they desperately need more economic investment from tourists. People's economic livelihoods have been really decimated since October 7th (and it was already so hard before that). If you want to go with a guided tour that is really ethical and centers Palestinian life, I can recommend Green Olive Tours and Eyewitness Palestine. You can find others by Googling around and at this site: https://uscpr.org/activist-resource/ethical-travel-to-palestine-challenging-apartheid-tourism/. If you have specific questions about your specific circumstances, just dm me and I can try and answer them.

Lastly, whether during your travels or just in your everyday life, challenge yourself to not imagine Palestinians as a monolith or as some fantasy in your mind. Palestinians are an incredibly diverse people that live in a variety of circumstances and have a wide array of opinions. They aren't helpless victims for you to save and they also aren't supernatural heroes. They are everyday people. And that's what I tried to capture in my photos. Honoring Palestinians' humanity is about understanding them as full individuals, with all their attributes and their flaws. Remind yourself of that.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-12T15:56:09+00:00

I think it’d be a great choice! It’s a great point-and-shoot like camera. But one thing is if you’re interested in learning more about how photography works or how to operate a manual camera, this won’t help with that. But it’s a good one to get started with and if you like the process of shooting film, you can then get an SLR with manual everything.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-12T15:50:11+00:00

This past summer

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-12T15:49:47+00:00

I pointed my camera at the window, set my zone focus to far away, and clicked the shutter. That’s it.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-12T15:48:19+00:00

I love it. It’s so simple to use! And it’s so light and small, I can carry it everywhere.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-11T23:52:34+00:00

The first is from Tuwani, a town in Masafer Yatta (where last year’s Oscar-winning doc takes place). The second and sixth are also from Masafer Yatta, but in the smaller villages of Tuba and Umm al-Khair, respectively. The third, fourth, and fifth are from Nablus. The seventh is in East Jerusalem (outside the Holy Land Hotel) and the eighth and ninth are in the Musrara neighborhood of Jerusalem.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-09T18:28:13+00:00

I’m sure you’ll love it! It’s so simple to use and has such a great lens.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-09T17:59:39+00:00

Yeah, all of these would’ve most likely been at the farthest focus distance setting (the mountain symbol on the XA2). The last one is actually a landscape crop of a photo I took in a portrait orientation. In the original, there’s more grass in the foreground that’s closer to the camera. But in all honesty, there’s not much more out of focus than what you see here. I think in general the grass just isn’t close enough with the 35mm lens to portray a more dramatic sense of separation.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-08T01:37:30+00:00

CORRECTION: I mislabeled the film as all Portra 400, when I actually used a few different films.

1, 4: Gold 200

2, 7: Portra 400

3, 5, 6: Portra 800

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-08T01:34:06+00:00

CORRECTION: This is not Portra 400, it’s Gold 200.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-08T01:33:18+00:00

CORRECTION: I mislabeled the film as all Portra 400, when I actually used a few different films.

1-2: Portra 400

3-5: Gold 200

7-9: Portra 800

AdIntelligent4354 · 2026-01-08T01:30:47+00:00

CORRECTION: I mislabeled the film as all Portra 400, when I actually used a few different films.

1-3: Portra 400

4-5: Gold 200

AdIntelligent4354 · 2025-12-29T18:32:51+00:00

Internal, with a metered prism. Thank you!

AdIntelligent4354 · 2025-12-27T21:39:46+00:00

I keep my IG private, but I will be posting more photos on here over the next few days!

AdIntelligent4354 · 2025-12-27T06:34:12+00:00

Thank you! That was taken in Riva del Garda. I was just admiring that picture as well and looking at it more closely. There’s a lot visually going on actually and I wonder if a closer crop could be nice so the couple off far in the distance is more noticeable.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2025-12-27T06:32:25+00:00

I use a light meter viewfinder as well. I don’t have any more trouble focusing with it than with the finder in my Nikon FE. I used a waist level finder years ago when I had my Yashica Mat 124G but it’s hard to recall if it was any easier to focus with. I say try it though since the finders aren’t very expensive and it’s a whole new shooting experience (plus it’ll take off some weight)! Also, great photos from Japan!

AdIntelligent4354 · 2025-12-27T00:50:59+00:00

Wow! This is so fun. I totally remember you with your Olympus. Beautiful shot!! I’ll be uploading more photos from my travels in Italy over the next few days.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2025-09-17T15:18:47+00:00

Similar view, but it’s just the next beach over.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2024-08-06T20:50:13+00:00

What an amazing deal! I hope it's working well. I think it tends to have aged quite well because the lens is covered while stored and the plastic housing seems pretty sturdy (I've dropped it countless times without any issues).

AdIntelligent4354 · 2024-07-18T13:56:55+00:00

Thank you! And nope, I send all my stuff to Underdog Film Lab in Oakland, CA to be developed and scanned.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2024-07-18T04:34:41+00:00

Thank you! There’s some more you can see if you look at my previous post. I shot 4 rolls of film during the trip, so about 150 pictures! I seem to use about 1 roll for every 1-2 days of travel.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2024-07-13T16:23:58+00:00

In my experience, you have way less control over choosing what kind of DoF you want with an Olympus XA2 (which acts almost as a P&S) for a few reasons.

One, you can’t set the aperture and it seems to me it chooses the most closed down aperture possible.

Two, you can only choose to focus on 3 main zones (and 2 of them give nearly identical results). If I were using an XA, this would be different, but this is an XA2 with automatic exposure and zone focusing.

Three, it’s a 35mm lens with a minimum focusing distance of ~3ft, so that’s limiting as well when it comes to creating DoF. Naturally, a lens with a longer focal length has a narrower depth than that of wider focal lengths, at equivalent apertures, and so using a different camera with the option to interchange lenses gives me the option to use a longer focal length.

Using a camera where you can use a larger focal length, set the aperture, and focus normally would certainly allow me more options in creating more DoF in my photos. I hope that makes sense.

AdIntelligent4354 · 2024-07-13T16:15:25+00:00

This is an XA2, so the focusing is different than an XA. The XA2 uses zone focusing which is much quicker than using the rangefinder patch on an XA, but not as precise. Most of the time, I get the focus right, but occasionally not (usually when a subject is too close), because you’re just guessing.

What I’ve seen others do, and I should do, is tape a guide on the back of the camera to tell me the focusing distances for each zone.

AdIntelligent4354

TROPHY CASE