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Shots from the Olympus XA1
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:37 pm    Post subject: Shots from the Olympus XA1 Reply with quote
Re my post
http://forum.mflenses.com/film-experiment-t7647.html
Here are my results from the Olympus XA1 a £1 film and £1.98p Supermarket developing and scan to CD.
Quality of the scans was very good. Although they are only 1908 x 1272 average 2mb JPG files they have no nasty noise reduction and contrast is kept low. This results in a very sharp results which can go straight to your Noise reduction programme for a bit of ‘Cleaning’ with hardly any effect on detail and sharpness and then into Photoshop for some final adjustments. They are far better than the results I used to get from a Minolta scanner and a later ‘High end model’ with ‘ICE’ that only ever succeeded in softening the image.
This one is posted only as an example of the quality.




Here is one example of the shots I thought usable.



PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Wow! Incredible! Many thanks for sharing!


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
Wow! Incredible! Many thanks for sharing!


Thank you Attila.
It is my pleasure to share

This is bargain basement photography!
I believe you could buy an XA1 for £5 or less, then its £3 for a 36 ex film and developing and scan.
Maybe I’ll try a disposable camera next! Laughing Wink

Who needs Digital?
I DO. Very Happy

Last edited by Rob Leslie on Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:01 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Exactly! I was shocked about quality. Really, really nice!


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Agree with Attila, some great work here. I'm looking for the XA RF model.
Thanks for sharing this interesting series!

Bill


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
good price and superb result
nevertheless I see some jpg artifacts and quite heavy noise reduction
I am not sure that you can't do better at home


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
For those (Like me a few days ago) who have never used one of the Supermarket/High St services this is what you get.
Perhaps that should be what you get from Tesco supermarket.
I have also included the little XA1 in the picture.
The whole story


Last edited by Rob Leslie on Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:51 pm; edited 2 times in total


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
hmmm I wonder if they will do scan only just for a contatc sheet to choose which ones are worth scanning higher res


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
hacksawbob wrote:
hmmm I wonder if they will do scan only just for a contatc sheet to choose which ones are worth scanning higher res


Good thinking Bob but I'm sure you will find it is all automatic and a CD has to be done. I'm sure for 99p it is worth it to save endless wasted hours.


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
poilu wrote:
good price and superb result
nevertheless I see some jpg artifacts and quite heavy noise reduction
I am not sure that you can't do better at home


Here is a Crop of the original image at full size. No adjustments


PostPosted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Amazing!


PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Good results - I'm still looking for a cheap XA or XA4, XA1's and XA2's seem to crop up regularly.


PostPosted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Absolutely remarkable for three quid! It's just so much a matter of luck if the minilab is clean and the scanner is set up right. For a chuckaway film it's certainly worth taking the chance though.


PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Farside wrote:
Absolutely remarkable for three quid! It's just so much a matter of luck if the minilab is clean and the scanner is set up right. For a chuckaway film it's certainly worth taking the chance though.


I don't know how the minilabs are in that neck of the woods but here many of them are very good - the one I use has had the newest equipment installed and looks very good.
Jim


PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
@ Rob Leslie - great shots, lpve the last one converted to B&W.

Jim


PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
j.lukow wrote:
Farside wrote:
Absolutely remarkable for three quid! It's just so much a matter of luck if the minilab is clean and the scanner is set up right. For a chuckaway film it's certainly worth taking the chance though.


I don't know how the minilabs are in that neck of the woods but here many of them are very good - the one I use has had the newest equipment installed and looks very good.
Jim


First thank you for your kind comment.

I agree the standard of equipment and service in the larger stores is excellent. I use 2 places here. Tesco and Asda (Walmart)
The staff no very little about photography and have no need to. The machines are serviced at regular intervals by the manufacturer and no adjustments can be made by the staff. They can't get them wrong.
I regularly have batches of 100+ 7x5 prints done at Asda on their Fuji lab and if I am not satisfied with the prints they do them again without question. This as only happened once when somthing went slightly wrong with the machine. A Fuji service was called and the problem was fixed in an hour.
I stress Fuji prints are very good but not as good as your own inkjets but I always prefer to sell lab prints as there is no risk of them fading and they are cheaper and quicker. I can't print 7x5 on decent paper for 14p!

PS. I dont see any film as "Chuckaway film' it may have only cost a £1 but what about the time spent taking the photos, what value that?

Last edited by Rob Leslie on Fri Jun 27, 2008 10:17 am; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Farside wrote:
Absolutely remarkable for three quid! It's just so much a matter of luck if the minilab is clean and the scanner is set up right. For a chuckaway film it's certainly worth taking the chance though.


Absolutely remarkable in any case... I paid much more for mine and I've never got so brilliant results...
Congrats for the pictures, are great!

Jes.


PostPosted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Rob Leslie wrote:
j.lukow wrote:
Farside wrote:
Absolutely remarkable for three quid! It's just so much a matter of luck if the minilab is clean and the scanner is set up right. For a chuckaway film it's certainly worth taking the chance though.


I don't know how the minilabs are in that neck of the woods but here many of them are very good - the one I use has had the newest equipment installed and looks very good.
Jim



PS. I dont see any film as "Chuckaway film' it may have only cost a £1 but what about the time spent taking the photos, what value that?


That's more or less my point...

The minilab nearest to me; I wouldn't trust them with any film but a chuckaway one, ie, a cheap one that's only gone through the camera to check it out. I certainly wouldn't give them anything I valued. The machine might be serviced regularly, and the chemicals replenished properly, but the way I've seen them treat customers' film is nothing short of careless. That's why, if I score some decent film for only a quid, I'll pay for pro processing, unless I find a decent minilab that's set up properly (and by set up, I mean staffed and used properly by shop assistants who have a clue).

I was interested to see that it was Tesco - I had a look at Tesco Ireland's site, but they don't mention anything about that service being available here - might be worth my while taking a trip to my nearest large Tesco, for their website is awful.
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