Indian Rail Travel

Seeing some of Rob's India video footage has got me rummaging through those 35mm photos I took when I visited last. See my blog a few months back... in 'older posts' probably. One of the joys of travel through India is the Railways. The trains are great for photography. Open doors provide unhindered views, and you'll see and experience all of life onboard. But not so much if you travel in the air conditioned classes of course. Remember I was using my Olympus XA2 camera ? But I'd now run out of b/w film and so was onto the Indian Kodak colour stuff. So here's three of the photos going from Agra to Delhi... grainy eh ? Maybe caused by the heat during storage ? Atmospheric though. Does the photo of the elderly Indian gentleman remind you of anyone famous from last century ?

To India with an Olympus XA2

On a recent trip to South India I thought I'd travel really light, so took the little Olympus XA2 35mm camera.
I found it great for all sorts of subjects. Here's just a few...
It was nice not having to worry about which lens to use, and the exposure system performed very well. I used mainly Ilford FP4, and when I'd run out of film (India is that sort of place !) I bought some Indian Kodak colour neg. film, and continued with that.
I like the XA2 as it's so quiet and unobtrusive. However, as streets in India can be rather noisy (understatement of the year) I often wasn't sure if the shutter had fired !
The Zuiko 35mm lens is really good performer, and I found I could enlarge the pictures alot.