Hint for a digital Xpan alternative... ...try the “Sigma DP0 quattro” - you can get this Cam for ~€700,- brand new and you can shoot it in 21:9 frame ratio ooc. I sold my Xpan instead and never regret...greez Midge
5:01 The choice of what format to use is absolutely a part of the shot. If there's a subject that works as a panorama, but that wouldn't work using the traditional 35mm 3:2 aspect ratio with a wider lens because you'd end up with empty space at the top and bottom of the image, then shoot it as a panorama; similarly, if there's a subject that's almost as tall as it is wide then you can probably compose it nicely on 6x7, whereas a 3:2 aspect ratio would gather useless information on the left and right. I mean, most subjects can probably be shot effectively on a variety of formats, with your job just being to choose where in the frame to place them and what other elements to include around the edges, but even if it's only an interesting picture because it's a panorama... at least it's interesting!
I was lucky enough to purchase an XPan more than 8 years ago when the price was still reasonable and I hope it won't break anytime soon. It's a lot of fun to use and to compose in the panoramic viewfinder is amazing. Interesting channel, I'll follow.
@@Cameraville I hope so, because I've read about a couple of photographers with a now broken XPan and they don't find somebody who can fix them. I don't remember now where I've read the article, sorry.
@@FabrizioZago if yours breaks, hold onto it. In a few years I think there will be some repair people who can fix it. We (at Kamerastore in Finland) already make a few spare parts for medium format cameras and others are doing the same, even starting to learn to make new electronic cables. Hopefully you are lucky and everything stays working wellm
With the Espio - can you control any of the metering manually? There's not a ton of info online. From what I've read it exposes automatically at 400iso, but there is no exposure compensation, so you're stuck with shooting only 400iso or overexposing 800iso (which is probably ideal).
I’m pretty sure the camera is DX coded and shoots at any metering from 100 to 800 or 1600. You might be right though. It’s more common that these compacts have Dx code rather than assuming a single iso. You put the film in it should expose correctly.
I owned and shot heavily with an Xpan for 2 years and it might just be my favorite camera of all time (in theory only) and despite that I still advise against owning one unless you can very comfortably afford it. Let me explain. 1. It is an electronic camera that no one knows how to repair, not even Hasselblad. If it breaks, it is likely dead forever or repaired at extreme expense. You will now own a very pretty brick. 2. The fastest lens is F4. This makes it pretty much a daylight or bright indoors camera only. I just pushed tri-x to 1600 by default when using the xpan. I like the look of pushed film but it isn't everyone's cup of tea. 3. You are paying Rangefinder tax on a camera that could really just be scale focus for the most part. The stock lens goes to infinite pretty quickly and most stuff the xpan wants to shoot are going to be focused for infinity. The lens just sits at infinity the vast majority of the time so the rangefinder ends up mostly being there for the viewfinding most of the time. The few times you DO shoot a subject close enough to merit focusing, it isn't exactly hard to nail focus @ F4 and slower. 4. It will make you think you are a much better photographer than you really are. Photos that would be utterly boring on any other camera can look interesting in the xpan aspect ratio. This might sound great, but I can honestly say the 2 years I shot with the xpan are the 2 years I grew the least as a photographer, despite being 2 of my most active years. It doesn't challenge you at all and you will end up taking a lot of boring photos that are passable because of their aspect ratio. 5. The annoyance of dealing with the negatives is a downside. You only get ~18 frames per roll so your film prices double and you end up with negatives that annoy most labs, need special film holders for enlarging/printing, and aren't supported by most scanners. You basically need to flatbed scan them and manually crop every negative either in the scanning software or in post. 6. Having only a 45mm vertical FOV can actually be very annoying if you like to shoot architecture. This is the main thing I shoot... 7. The 45mm lens is the single sharpest film lens I have ever used but its color rendering is honestly pretty bad. Thankfully, I shoot almost entirely black and white, but if you are a color photographer its not gonna blow you away. 8. Massively overpriced. I got mine for $1700 years ago and sold it 2 years later for $3700. Even at $1700 I think its a stretch because for that money you could own a great mechanical camera and a full bag of lenses that will last you forever. I sold mind mostly for reasons 1 and 8. Reason 2-7 I could live with but eventually I was scared to take the camera with me for anything other than dedicated shooting. It was too pricey to carry every day and frequent use meant more chances to break. As soon as I become scared to carry a camera, it is useless and must be sold. These days I actually use a Pentax 120SW in its place for Panoramas and it works wonderfully. Whatever film was being used in it in this video was processed terribly and is not indicative of the cameras performance. Also, you shouldn't actually take the photo with the panoramic gates up, they can cause diffraction and weird exposures. I use them to frame then turn the switch off and crop in post.
Really appreciate this I learned a lot. I did a review of the lomography sprocket rocket on my channel a while back and the plastic lens let's it down I think. Some of your Pentax images seem underexposed, maybe you can half-press and meter for the ground or shadows before taking the shot.
Raychristofer You are right about the Pentax images and suggestion, I will surely try that next time. I like the camera, I owned one last year and got some good shots.
To me the XPan is the winner but it may very well be because of the better optics as you indicated. I don't see the point of the Pentax because I can just crop to that ratio in Lightroom and it comes to the same. I just feel like the images of the Xpan look so much better but no film camera is worth $3,000 to me. I would rather get a superb digital camera for that price. What film did you use? Lomo?
Yes lomo 800 on all. What's cool about the Pentax (and the others) is that you see the panoramic view through the viewfinder. I would say even using a fake panoramic camera is much better than cropping later because, at least for me, composing with the actual panoramic view/preview gives me much better results than composing with an imaginary crop. If you have any old compacts with a panoramic mode I would suggest trying it, it's a lot of fun. I would [one day] buy and Xpan for 3k if it was all mechanical. These days I won't spend more than 100 or $150 on an electronic film camera that can mysteriously die at any moment due to its age.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I’ve had my xPan for 22 years now and it’s an absolutely beautiful format to shoot with!
So happy it's given so much use to you and is still working. What a great purchase :)
Hint for a digital Xpan alternative...
...try the “Sigma DP0 quattro” - you can get this Cam for ~€700,- brand new and you can shoot it in 21:9 frame ratio ooc. I sold my Xpan instead and never regret...greez Midge
Thanks for sharing.. can't wait to pick-up my 120sw
5:01 The choice of what format to use is absolutely a part of the shot. If there's a subject that works as a panorama, but that wouldn't work using the traditional 35mm 3:2 aspect ratio with a wider lens because you'd end up with empty space at the top and bottom of the image, then shoot it as a panorama; similarly, if there's a subject that's almost as tall as it is wide then you can probably compose it nicely on 6x7, whereas a 3:2 aspect ratio would gather useless information on the left and right. I mean, most subjects can probably be shot effectively on a variety of formats, with your job just being to choose where in the frame to place them and what other elements to include around the edges, but even if it's only an interesting picture because it's a panorama... at least it's interesting!
Just found the channel from the Instagram page. I loved this video - very cool stuff. Looking forward to diving into the archives and seeing new ones!
Tim Fitzwater Glad you made it here, thanks for watching
I was lucky enough to purchase an XPan more than 8 years ago when the price was still reasonable and I hope it won't break anytime soon. It's a lot of fun to use and to compose in the panoramic viewfinder is amazing.
Interesting channel, I'll follow.
Thank you! I think the xpan should last a while. Most things that are beginning to break are slightly older and not built to be that tough
@@Cameraville I hope so, because I've read about a couple of photographers with a now broken XPan and they don't find somebody who can fix them. I don't remember now where I've read the article, sorry.
@@FabrizioZago if yours breaks, hold onto it. In a few years I think there will be some repair people who can fix it. We (at Kamerastore in Finland) already make a few spare parts for medium format cameras and others are doing the same, even starting to learn to make new electronic cables. Hopefully you are lucky and everything stays working wellm
@@Cameraville That's a very useful info, thank you. I would never get rid of the XPan, even if it's breaking (but hopefully it won't happen).
With the Espio - can you control any of the metering manually? There's not a ton of info online. From what I've read it exposes automatically at 400iso, but there is no exposure compensation, so you're stuck with shooting only 400iso or overexposing 800iso (which is probably ideal).
I’m pretty sure the camera is DX coded and shoots at any metering from 100 to 800 or 1600. You might be right though. It’s more common that these compacts have Dx code rather than assuming a single iso. You put the film in it should expose correctly.
Finally! Good to see ya guys. That zoom action. :) Horizon can give you some awesome crative possibilities with that rotating lens. Keep it up guys.
Thank you :) I would like to try the Horizon for landscapes and crowded indoor stuff, would be interesting.
I owned and shot heavily with an Xpan for 2 years and it might just be my favorite camera of all time (in theory only) and despite that I still advise against owning one unless you can very comfortably afford it. Let me explain.
1. It is an electronic camera that no one knows how to repair, not even Hasselblad. If it breaks, it is likely dead forever or repaired at extreme expense. You will now own a very pretty brick.
2. The fastest lens is F4. This makes it pretty much a daylight or bright indoors camera only. I just pushed tri-x to 1600 by default when using the xpan. I like the look of pushed film but it isn't everyone's cup of tea.
3. You are paying Rangefinder tax on a camera that could really just be scale focus for the most part. The stock lens goes to infinite pretty quickly and most stuff the xpan wants to shoot are going to be focused for infinity. The lens just sits at infinity the vast majority of the time so the rangefinder ends up mostly being there for the viewfinding most of the time. The few times you DO shoot a subject close enough to merit focusing, it isn't exactly hard to nail focus @ F4 and slower.
4. It will make you think you are a much better photographer than you really are. Photos that would be utterly boring on any other camera can look interesting in the xpan aspect ratio. This might sound great, but I can honestly say the 2 years I shot with the xpan are the 2 years I grew the least as a photographer, despite being 2 of my most active years. It doesn't challenge you at all and you will end up taking a lot of boring photos that are passable because of their aspect ratio.
5. The annoyance of dealing with the negatives is a downside. You only get ~18 frames per roll so your film prices double and you end up with negatives that annoy most labs, need special film holders for enlarging/printing, and aren't supported by most scanners. You basically need to flatbed scan them and manually crop every negative either in the scanning software or in post.
6. Having only a 45mm vertical FOV can actually be very annoying if you like to shoot architecture. This is the main thing I shoot...
7. The 45mm lens is the single sharpest film lens I have ever used but its color rendering is honestly pretty bad. Thankfully, I shoot almost entirely black and white, but if you are a color photographer its not gonna blow you away.
8. Massively overpriced. I got mine for $1700 years ago and sold it 2 years later for $3700. Even at $1700 I think its a stretch because for that money you could own a great mechanical camera and a full bag of lenses that will last you forever.
I sold mind mostly for reasons 1 and 8. Reason 2-7 I could live with but eventually I was scared to take the camera with me for anything other than dedicated shooting. It was too pricey to carry every day and frequent use meant more chances to break. As soon as I become scared to carry a camera, it is useless and must be sold. These days I actually use a Pentax 120SW in its place for Panoramas and it works wonderfully. Whatever film was being used in it in this video was processed terribly and is not indicative of the cameras performance. Also, you shouldn't actually take the photo with the panoramic gates up, they can cause diffraction and weird exposures. I use them to frame then turn the switch off and crop in post.
Really appreciate this I learned a lot. I did a review of the lomography sprocket rocket on my channel a while back and the plastic lens let's it down I think. Some of your Pentax images seem underexposed, maybe you can half-press and meter for the ground or shadows before taking the shot.
Raychristofer You are right about the Pentax images and suggestion, I will surely try that next time. I like the camera, I owned one last year and got some good shots.
Did you have a different film on the espio in the beguinning? The later shots look better..
Same film.. seems to not meter well when there is half sky in the shot... Maybe that's why
Cheer up, Nuno - always look on the bright side of life :)
I too can create a panoramic look. I squint my eyes. Review on my channel coming soon. Nice to see you guys uploading again.
Zain Riza Sunglasses with tape! XD
To me the XPan is the winner but it may very well be because of the better optics as you indicated. I don't see the point of the Pentax because I can just crop to that ratio in Lightroom and it comes to the same. I just feel like the images of the Xpan look so much better but no film camera is worth $3,000 to me. I would rather get a superb digital camera for that price. What film did you use? Lomo?
Yes lomo 800 on all. What's cool about the Pentax (and the others) is that you see the panoramic view through the viewfinder. I would say even using a fake panoramic camera is much better than cropping later because, at least for me, composing with the actual panoramic view/preview gives me much better results than composing with an imaginary crop.
If you have any old compacts with a panoramic mode I would suggest trying it, it's a lot of fun.
I would [one day] buy and Xpan for 3k if it was all mechanical. These days I won't spend more than 100 or $150 on an electronic film camera that can mysteriously die at any moment due to its age.
someone color correct these negatives!
No! 😆
@@Cameraville I actually really liked the color and darkness of them, gives a certain mood.
Sorry but there isn’t anything like the x-Pan!