This $50 Camera Changed My Photography Forever

I am, charitably, a moderately competent hobbyist photographer. I owe pretty much every ounce of that competence to the instant, guess-and-check shooting style that modern digital cameras make possible. When the shutter-bug first bit me in earnest, I spent hours taking literally thousands of absolute garbage pictures with a borrowed DSLR, fiddling with all the settings and inching my way to a handful of decent shots, gigabytes of trash in my wake. My technique has improved since then, but the path to my favorite shots remains a trigger-happy tumble. When you have a digital camera, why not?

Then, I came across the Olympus XA2.

First sold in 1980, the XA2 is everything that my more serious digital camera, an Olympus OM-D EM10 MK II, is not. For starters, it’s a film camera, obviously. But it’s also a point-and-shoot, with mandatory automatic exposure and zone-based focusing you set manually based on your best guess as to the distance to your subject.

There are about a thousand things to love about the XA2’s design. It’s tiny, barely bigger than a deck of cards, making my already small Micro Four Thirds mainstay look like a goliath by comparison. And with the integrated dust-cover that snaps shut over the lens, it’s eminently pocketable and loads of fun to fidget with when you aren’t shooting. With its all-black design and legendarily quiet shutter, it’s extremely discreet. And with automatic exposure and focus distance you set before you fire, it’s lightning-fast to operate once you have it primed, far speedier than my phone. Last, but not least, it just looks extremely striking, which is how I found myself hunting one down on eBay after merely scrolling past a picture of the handsome little guy on Twitter.

But what I think I love most about this camera is that its combination of features puts it in a unique position between the digital camera I grab for premeditated sessions of Doing Artsy Photography, and my phone camera that I always have on hand and use for basic, documentation purposes. It’s got about the ease-of-use of an iPhone camera but also the convenience of… film. And that’s making me think about my photography in an entirely new way.

When loaded with black and white film, the XA2 prevents me from leaning on color to carry my shots. Its complete lack of zoom makes me get creative with my framing, while the lack of exposure settings or ability to just jack up the ISO makes me carefully consider my environment. Its handiness and speed make me keep my eyes out for even split-second shots while, simultaneously, limited exposures and the time (and cost) of development encourage me to carefully pick my battles. The result is that stellar results are, for now, much rarer to come by, but even the merely decent ones tend to be pretty well-composed (at least to my eye). And the ones that are actually great? They’re a hard-won victory showcasing genuine technical skill, not just brute-force burst fire.

I’m sure some of this experience is more about the medium than the camera itself, but with its dead-simple, zippy operation and everyday-carry size, the XA2 has won my heart through far more than just shooting film. And better yet, it can be had for fairly cheap. You’ll find plenty of buy-it-now eBay listings for ostensibly pristine units in the $100 range, but I was able to snag my beat up but functional baby in an auction for $50 all told. (Albeit without the optional flash module.) Who knows how long it will last, but I will be using it until I find out.

So if you’re looking for the perfect first film camera for you, well, don’t look at me! I don’t know you! This is the only film camera I’ve ever seriously used! But what I can say is that this puppy has been living in my pocket non-stop for weeks, and I expect it to continue holing up there for months to come, making me a better photographer no matter what camera I’m using.

Note: Purchasing products through our links may earn us a portion of the sale, which supports our editorial team’s mission. Learn more here.

How to Buy a Mechanical Keyboard

I get it. Your laptop already has its own keyboard attached. The computer at the office came with a flat little keyboard for you to use and it works just fine. Why would you want to spend potentially hundreds of dollars to replace something you already have and which works fine?

A mechanical keyboard isn’t strictly better than what you already have on your desk. It can’t instantly make you a better or faster typist. But the draw of mechanical keyboards isn’t about functionality or efficiency. These keyboards just feel better. They look cooler. You can trick them out in your own style. Because the device you surely use for so much of your working day should be more than just a tool. It should be a source of pleasure. Every cubicle keyboardist at least deserves the joy of finding the perfect weapon of choice and wielding it every day.

The Budget Starter: Qisan Magicforce 68

If you’re really on the fence, the Qisan Magicforce 68 is the keyboard for you. Chinese made, these boards are extremely cheap but punch well above their weight. Prices tend to fluctuate over time, as well as from model to model depending on what color and switches you’d like. But if you’re looking to get in on the cheap, there’s no better entry point. The best part about getting a cheap board for your first time out? It’s a great excuse to spring for something expensive the next time around once you have a handle on what it is you actually like.

The Upgrade Pick: Drop ALT

The Massdrop ALT is admittedly a bit expensive, but there is a good reason to shell out: it is, in a manner of speaking, an infinite number of keyboards at once. Most mechanical keyboards have switches that are permanently soldered in, so if you want to try a new kind of switch, you’ll have to buy a new keyboard that has them. The ALT, on the other hand, has “hot-swap switch sockets,” which means that you can replace both they keycaps and the switches with ease. That means that if you decide you want to try a new flavor of switches, all you have to do is buy a handful from a wholesaler and install them yourself, saving you a lot of money and space versus buying more keyboards. Its 65 percent design is also, to my mind, the perfect layout, though the larger and more expensive Massdrop CTRL can give you a tenkeyless option.

Made-to-Order: Custom WASD Keyboards

A slightly cheaper but still terrific option is a custom keyboard from WASD Keyboards. WASD offers full-size, ten keyless, and 60 percent sizes, along with the most popular flavors of switch, and case colors of black and white. But the best part is that these keyboards come with custom caps that you can design down to the individual key. While these caps are far from the highest quality and may show signs of wear pretty quickly if they feature printed legends, they are a terrific way to get your first taste of how addictively fun it is to trick out your own custom board. My very first mechanical keyboard (that’s it, right up there) was a 60 percent from WASD with brown switches, though if I could go back in time, I’d opt for a tenkeyless with clears instead.
Protip: Don’t pick an ISO layout with the big weird enter key. That makes finding custom keysets that fit your board much, much harder.

Linear switches are switches that simply go up and down with no gimmicks. When you press a linear switch, you’ll feel it depress smoothly until it’s all the way down. This is the vanilla of mechanical switches: it is very good and very enjoyable but it is also very simple. If you see a switch called a “red” or a “black,” it is almost certainly a linear switch. Blacks are typically the stiffer of the two.

Clicky switches are the other end of the spectrum. Clicky switches have two parts inside of them that smack against each other as you press them down, which results in a satisfying sensation for your fingers as well as a clicky noise that you may enjoy but that other people in the room will almost certainly hate. If you see a switch called a “blue” or a “green,” it is almost certainly a clicky switch, and greens tend to be the stiffer of the two.

Tactile switches are something of a fusion of these two options. Tactile switches have “bump” on the way down, a small physical sensation that is reminiscent of a click, but much more subtle and, perhaps more importantly, entirely inaudible. Tactile switches are a little rarer than linear or clicky switches, but are very popular among enthusiasts for this best-of-both worlds-quality. They’re also, by far, my favorite. If you see a switch called a “brown” or a “clear,” it is almost certainly a tactile switch, and clears are generally the stiffer of the two.

Related Video: How to Build a Mechanical Keyboard

There is also a flavor of switches called “Topre,” but that’s a whole other can of worms you can open on your own if you’d like.

Our recommendation: Your first consideration for your choice be sound. Don’t buy clicky switches if you work within earshot of family or coworkers!!! Their high-pitched clicks tend to be particularly irritating to bystanders. While linear and tactile switches lack an annoying “click,” they do still make considerably more noise than a membrane keyboard. If that prospect makes you self-conscious, my go-to solution is not to give up the dream but rather to convince a coworker to buy a mechanical keyboard as well so you are not alone. You can also opt for specialized keyboards that are designed to be quiet, but even these make noise.

The second consideration is feel. You can buy switch testers like this 9-Key Cherry Tester ($18) which will give you the opportunity to feel everything you’ve just read about, and for a reasonable price. But beware: pressing one switch with one finger is barely indicative of what it feels like to type on keyboard full of that switch. If you have a friend with a mechanical keyboard, certainly ask to try theirs. Otherwise, just take the plunge with whatever seems appealing. Personally, I prefer tactile, but enjoy linears as well!

Full-size keyboards have all the keys you could ever want: a full suite of letters and numbers (obviously) but also arrow keys, a row of F1-F12 function keys above the numbers and a dedicated numpad. This is your safest bet, with a few minor downsides. Bigger mechanical keyboards are generally more expensive, and they have a larger footprint on your desk.

Tenkeyless boards are a full-size keyboard, but without the numpad. Simple! After all, you can just pick up a numpad separately if you really miss it.

60 percent keyboards dispense with the numpad, but also function keys and, most notably, arrow keys. In lieu of dedicated keys for these functions, 60 percent boards make use of a feature called layering. Just like you would hold shift to access the “layer” of keys where symbols like @ and * live on a normal keyboard, 60 percent keyboards use an additional “function layer” to give you temporary access to the keys it is missing. Some slightly larger keyboards known as 65 or 68 percent keyboards, find a way to cram in those arrow keys somewhere by getting creative with the size of certain keys.

There are also even smaller boards, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Our recommendation: Unless you use the numpad on a very regular basis, get a Tenkeyless. Smaller 60 percenters are very popular for their minimalism and portability, but I would advise against choosing any keyboard that does not have arrow keys. If you’re anything like me, you will miss them far, far more than you expected to.

Budget sets of replacement caps can be found on Amazon in the $30-50 range. But while colorful and widely available, they’re generally made out of low quality plastic and a pretty limited variety of colors. More esoteric and high-quality keysets are generally produced in small runs, are only available for limited times through boutique websites and may cost as much if not more than what you paid for the keyboard itself.

For an idea of the range of options that are trendy with enthusiasts, scope out a mechanical keyboard haunt like r/mechanicalkeyboards on Reddit. For an idea of what is available for purchase at the moment, you can scope out reputable boutique retailers like Drop, Pimp My Keyboard, and Originative Co. Just be prepared to wait; orders for new keysets are often taken long before the keys themselves are actually in production.

For a smaller upgrade, you can also purchase custom keys one by one. Some novelty keys, like the ever-popular “Sadster” can be had for as little as a dollar. Other “artisan” keys are made by hand or produced using handmade casts. These highly collectible keys are truly stunning and unique works of art, but they’re also wildly expensive. Artisan keycaps from Jelly Key (some of the best in the biz) will run you $50 or more for a single key.

And then, of course, there is the matter of your next keyboard because, let’s face it, there will be another. While it is too much to go into right here right now, just know that there is a wide, wide world of tiny keyboards, strangely-shaped ergonomic keyboards and, of course, the prospect of building one yourself.

Our recommendation: Any, or all, of the above! Just do something, because otherwise you’re only having half the fun you could be.

Do You Need to Upgrade to 5G? Here’s What It’s Actually Like to Use

This story is part of our Summer Preview, a collection of features, guides and reviews to help you navigate warmer months ahead.
On paper, 5G will make your jaw drop. Its highest speeds beat most home broadband connections by orders of magnitude. With it, YouTube videos load in a snap, entire seasons of TV download in seconds. More crucial than any anecdote or benchmark, however, is the answer to a simple question: How will this technology change the way I live my life?

After spending some time surfing 5G’s futuristic airwaves humming with hype, I can tell you with firsthand knowledge: it probably won’t. At least not yet.

Officially, in its broadest definition, 5G stands for fifth-generation cellular wireless. It’s the successor to 4G and a cousin to LTE. New phones will support it and older phones will not. As far as the marketers are concerned, 5G is synonymous with speed. But under the hood, 5G is a digital chimera — a marriage of two different technological means suited to a similar end.

One half, known colloquially as “sub-6,” is quickly blanketing the nation. In large part a software upgrade, this flavor of 5G operates on the same general airwaves your phone currently uses and shares the same general characteristics, spreading far and wide from tall, distant towers that combine to cover a large area.

The other half, often called “millimeter wave,” is the sexy bit. Utilizing extremely high-frequency airwaves never widely used by mobile devices before, it delivers blistering speeds of 1,000 megabits per second or higher. But it comes with significant downsides: these waves don’t travel far, and they are easily blocked by walls, buses and trees; and for now, they’re only pumped out of little black antennas on top of streetlights in a handful of cities across the country.

When 3G and 4G rolled out, they were a revelation because they offered access to something cable connections had created years before: an internet built for broadband. In 2020, 5G is pushing unprecedented speed, so the cart is leading the horse. When I booted up my 5G phone, I excitedly benchmarked its speed, downloaded a few large files … then went about my day as faster speeds hummed imperceptibly in the background. Millimeter wave, which packs almost all of 5G’s significant punch, is much more like Wi-Fi than the all-encompassing “mobile” networks we’re accustomed to. They act as a series of high-speed islands you need to seek out and find reason to stand in.

In my time testing 5G around New York — primarily with a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ on AT&T’s network — my experience was almost entirely with sub-6, as your first dabbles with 5G will be, too. That initial test revealed that 5G is still impressive … if not life-altering or consistent.

My daily trek home from midtown Manhattan to the west side of the Hudson River weaves through the heart of one 5G’s beachheads in New York City. With my eyes glued to the signal icon on my phone’s status bar (with admittedly little regard for my own safety), I’d catch the signal flicker between 5G and LTE a dozen or more times. On trips using my phone like a normal human being would — reading Twitter, checking Instagram, streaming music, watching the occasional YouTube video — I never once noticed any change in performance the way I do when, on the bus home along rural stretches to my parents’ house in upstate New York, I instantly detect the occasional downtick to 3G load times and the relief of return to LTE.

I noticed 5G most when I was explicitly running the numbers: standing on the corner of 5th Avenue and 28th Street in the bustle of Manhattan, holding two phones for comparison and watching a Netflix video load slightly faster on the futuristic network. Quantitative metrics were more definitive: running seven speed tests in a row while sitting in the Lincoln Tunnel or walking along the edge of the Hudson River, the advantage for 5G made itself plenty clear in the numbers. But aside from edge-use cases like downloading entire discographies, multiple seasons of a television series or high-definition mobile games (all of which will absolutely demolish your data cap if you have one), the difference between 20 megabits of download speed and 200 is like the difference between a Porsche 911 and a V12 Ferrari. One’s faster than the other, but most people would ever notice.

I can imagine a future where this is no longer true — and so can carriers and tech companies. It’s a world where airports and bus stops are blanketed with millimeter-wave radio waves as a matter of course, and you can seek out a hotspot to download four gigabytes of video before you take off, or stream 4K PC-grade video games to your phone through a service like Google Stadia or Microsoft Project xCloud. Or, looking even further down the road, loading a terabyte of augmented reality apps onto your iGlasses. But we aren’t there yet. And the arrival of robust 5G doesn’t bring us there; it just sets the stage.

While 5G’s potential is undeniable, the current coverage situation leaves a bit to be desired. Sometimes your connection is just going to be mediocre.

In the meantime, 5G charges on. Samsung’s new flagship S20 is among the first crop of phones to support both flavors of the technology by default (previous handsets focused on one or the other and cost a premium for the privilege). There’s a good chance Apple’s next iPhones will as well. Carriers are beginning to roll out 5G data plans using a variety of strategies, from offering 5G access for free on existing unlimited plans to offering it at a monthly premium. All, of course, are designed in part to lure you off any particularly affordable plan you may have found yourself grandfathered into.

My advice for the meantime? Resist the 5G temptation, insofar as you have no particular use in mind. Its most impressive advantages are, for now, few and far between. Once superfast millimeter wave blankets public spaces as a matter of course and data caps inflate to allow monstrously huge files, the calculus will assuredly change. For now, however, 5G is a fabulous foundation still waiting for the house to be built on top.
A version of this story originally appeared in a print issue of Gear Patrol Magazine. Subscribe today.

8K TVs Are the Future. Here’s What You Need to Know Right Now

This story is part of our Summer Preview, a collection of features, guides and reviews to help you navigate warmer months ahead.

Like 4K and HD before it, 8K resolution is poised to bring a new standard for pixel-packing to your television. But an 8K screen is only as good as what you can put on it. After years of hype and prototypes, 8K TVs are finally starting to come to market. Here’s what you need to know before you consider buying one.

So what is 8K, exactly?

The term 8K has long been fuzzy, but thanks to the Consumer Technology Association, which sets the rules manufacturers abide by, we now have an official definition: an 8K Ultra HD Display has a resolution of at least 7680 x 4320 pixels for 33 million active pixels total. In other words, 8K has four times the resolution of 4K, and 16 times the resolution of the HDTV.

What can I buy?

A whole crop of 8K TVs showed up at the 2020 Consumer Electronics show, and unlike earlier proofs of concept, these models will hit the market … for a price. Samsung sells some of the most affordable 8K TVs sets as part of its Q900 line, but a 65-inch model still costs upward of $3,500. That’s just the beginning. LG’s jaw-dropping 8K OLED TVs come with an equally impressive price tag — they’ll set you back about 30 Gs.

Is there anything I can watch?

There’s not a lot! If you were to buy an 8K TV right now, you wouldn’t be able to buy an 8K cable box. Popular streaming apps — like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu — are still plugging away at 4K, in part because 8K files are enormous. And the prospects for an 8K disc format are also fairly grim. However, some broadcasters, specifically those in Italy and Japan, are pushing to capture the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 8K, and YouTube has had 8K content since 2015.

Is it good for gaming?

Gaming in 4K, much less 8K, is a tricky proposition at the moment, especially as consoles are concerned. Right now, the base versions of Sony’s PS4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One don’t have the horsepower for 4K. But by the end of 2020, if all goes as planned, we’ll see the new PS5 and Xbox Series X both of which will support 8K. Hopefully, they’ll spur on a generation of new console games that make use of that power.

Do I need it?

No, not yet. Right now, an 8K TV is an upgrade over what you already have; 8K TVs can upscale HD and 4K, giving them an extra boost. But this is bleeding-edge tech, and you’d be paying a huge premium for an experience that’s yet to arrive. The only real reason to hop on board now is if you are fixing for a flex.

A version of this story originally appeared in a print issue of Gear Patrol Magazine. Subscribe today.

Note: Purchasing products through our links may earn us a portion of the sale, which supports our editorial team’s mission. Learn more here.

This Award-Winning Surge Protector Will Actually Look Nice on Your Desk

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