People’s Park Chengdu with an Olympus XA3 and expired Rollei RPX 400

I’m lucky enough to be able to spend a couple of months in Chengdu, China each year as part of my job and usually stay in the central part of town. I take a different film camera with me each time. Previously I’ve used the Olympus OM10, Minolta X700 and OM2sp; all have performed flawlessly and given some great photos but, especially with extra lenses, were heavy and bulky. I graduated to rangefinders such as the Olympus 35RC, Vivitar 35es and Ricoh 500g. Again, all produced good results but I needed big pockets – the lenses meant they were a pain to get out of a pair of Levis – and time to focus. I wanted something more svelte and immediate so this time plumped for the little Olympus XA3.

This article isn’t a review of the XA3; there are plenty of articles on the camera and its siblings already but I’ll add my thoughts on it from a user experience as a travel point and shoot at the end.

Parks in China are designed and used very differently to those in the UK. In this country, parks tend to be large open areas for recreation, (playing football and walking the dog) mostly untended and with rusting, vandalised play areas and a drab ice-cream pavilion or café if you are lucky.

China’s parks on the other hand are more eclectic. In huge, densely populated megacities they are seen and used more as a community resource and a place for families, couples and individuals to relax and escape urban bustle. The parks are maintained and well-kept, the environment and landscaping are i more varied, often with water features, and most have one or more teahouses. Many larger parks are walled with gates and have set opening and closing times, some even charge a small entrance fee.

In Chengdu, Peoples Park (aka Renmin Park) is no exception. Open from around 7am to 10pm and illuminated at night it’s a big green space situated right in the centre and is one of the oldest parks in the city. It’s a little world of its own; a microcosm of laid-back Chengdu lifestyle tucked away in the centre of a city of 20 million plus people. It’s a popular place for both locals and visitors to the city, containing among other things, monuments, flower and bonsai gardens, rock formations, tea houses and a boating lake. Inside, people pass the time ambling around, chatting, exercising, dancing, sipping tea, playing cards, chess or mahjong and generally just doing their own thing.

I woke early one Sunday morning and decided to go there first thing while it was still quiet. I’d been there several times before to while away the time and people watch, usually with my OMD EM10ii. This time I decided to take the XA3 with me and loaded it with 3 year expired Rollei RPX400. I chose the ASA as the weather is generally dull and grey and the XA3 lens only f3.5.

The film was processed and scanned locally as BMP files for a 40 Chinese Yuan price… About £4.50. The results are below, SooC with no editing at all.
The photos are very grainy and contrasty but I like the effect – quite gritty and realistic for street style shots. I later asked the guy in the shop what developer he used. He showed me a bottle labelled ‘Kermel’, which I’d never heard of.

Oh, The Camera? What I liked. It slips easily into a small pocket and the clamshell cover protects the lens and locks the shutter. Wind it on in advance, open the cover and it’s ready to go immediately as a point and shoot. It’s perfect for candid street photography. Quiet, no-fuss and not intrusive.

What bugged me a little … No AE lock. Not such a big deal but would be useful in high contrast situations. No exposure control apart from the +1.5 switch for backlit subjects although this could be overridden by taping over the DX marks on the film canister and using the ASA setting. It’s small. When winding on, I had to constantly move my fingers to stop them interfering with the moving rewind dial. I found the distance setting counter intuitive. To focus closer, you push a lever away from you; to focus on infinity, you move the lever towards you. Maybe it’s my example but I had a few framing issues. The viewfinder frame marks and the lens are not perfectly aligned, which meant a few fails in my attempts at symmetry.

And finally, Chengdu is a great place. A relaxed, laid-back, cosmopolitan, forward thinking city with pandas and amazing spicy cuisine. It’s well worth a visit.

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