Photography can be very expensive. Whether its buying the latest and greatest camera, the best lenses or the cost of film and processing it. It all costs money, lots of money…lots of money I don’t have.

To combat the costs I buy used, I sell used, I trade in cameras I want to upgrade. Basically do anything to get those costs down to continue to enjoy taking pictures without turning my credit card into molten plastic. That led me to EBAY a few weeks back to purchase this beauty an Olympus XA2:

I had been looking for a pocketable film camera after trading in a different Olympus a few months back to get a small digital camera. This was the model I had been looking for exclusively as it has good reviews, its stylish as hell and its small enough to fit in a pocket. Wins all around! Plus I had an EBAY coupon so bonus victory!

The day after I got it I put in a fresh roll of Kodak pro image 100, fresh batteries and I blew that roll as quickly as possible to make sure everything was ok, and the results?

Fart noise! Yellow clouded, fart noise!

Things like this happen when buying used. I had another used camera die mid roll and I was given one with a dead LCD screen i couldnt replace. These are old and intricate machines, they die, thats what they do. Thankfully the seller offered to refund my purchase so the stor has a happy ending and I have these yellow pictures to figure out some way to convert them into something better.