Thanks guys!
I will confirm that there are no problems at all about focusing or lack of sharpness.
The patch of my rangefinder was very dim and I applied a black patch in the middle of the rangefinder in order to improve the contrast of the splitted image (that helped a lot!).
First picture were taken without the black patch (in fact in the first picture you can see that focusing what not perfect due to my focusing error).
With the black patch applied I found the sharpness very good also at f 2,8.
For this test I have used a chip roll that seems to be produced by Agfa (this is what is reported inside the film box).
If I enlarge at 100% the original scan (about 2000x3000 scanned by the lab) the grain become very easy noticeable and IMHO it's the real limit of the sharpness in this case.
I'm used to have negative scan from the same lab exposed with my Yashica mat 124G (6x6 MF camera with a very sharp lens) and when I use 100 iso films you can really appreciate the very good quality of the scans made by this equipment.
I confirm also the slight pincushion noticeable in some picture, I have not corrected the lens distorsion in this pictures.
About the exposure, I 've exposed all the roll without backlight compensation or iso setting changes (always left at 200) in order to test the reliability of the internal meter.
In some pictures I have introduced a +/-0,5 correction maximum, but just for my taste (with the raw file I usually take with my Nikon D90 quite often I correct the exposure more than this case).
What else?
Yes, the flash shot were taken with a piece of exposed&developed negative color film applied on the flash sensor with trasparent tape and the flash set at 400iso, in order to adjust the flash power with the 200 iso film (I measured before with an external light meter the loss of light caused by this film layer and was slightly more than one stop, so it was perfect for the purpose 😛 ).
Last things that remain now to do are to change the light seals on the back (even if there are no leakage at all the seals are now pretty gummy and sticky, I've just received a new set from Jon Godman...) and going on shooting more films! 🙂
Bye,
Nicola
P.S. a useful trick, I do not know if you guys already know but with the XA you could also have a B mode! Just set the aperture and the focusing you want with the camera mounted on a tripod or simply placed on something steady, then set the bottom switch in the battery check position. At this point you could fire the shutter (the beeper is quite annoying but who cares??), when it's time to close again the shutter just put the switch back in the normal position 🙂....here it is your B hidden mode!
