Got a new Olympus XA!

[seifadiaz]

Due to the need for a small pocketable camera, just got myself an XA from eBay. I have found some possible issues and would need the advice of more knowledgeable individuals.

a. How bright should a good rf patch be? Indoors, I can barely see the rf patch, can be fixed by a sharpie though. My M6 is better than XA (maybe an unfair comparison). 😉

b. A11 flash doesn't seem to work. I have slapped in a fresh duracell battery and still no go. The button on the top of the flash pops up when I select the flash option on the camera. Contacts in the flash and the body are clean. Anything I missed here?

c. When testing the self-timer, the camera beeps, LED flashes, but doesn't reach all the way to 12 seconds as stated in the manual. It stops at random occasions and shutter does not fire. I'm off to find some new SR44's and I hope this fixes it (maybe related to the flash issue). Any ideas? :bang:

d. It's easy to see the brightline finder + shutter speed in good light but somewhat dim indoors. Is this normal?

 

[Bingley]

I'll take a stab at a couple of your issues. It's not uncommon for the XA's rangefinder patch to fade w/ age and be very hard to see. There is a DIY fix for this which I've never tried, but you may look into if you google it. It sounds like you got a defective flash unit, too, but the flash units for these cameras were never all that good anyway. I rarely use mine. I can't comment on the self-timer or vf issues, except to suggest that your camera may need a CLA. Whether it's worth it to CLA an Oly XA is a different question. If you like the photos taken w/ the camera, then perhaps the answer is yes. I think it's a terrific little camera, and there are a lot of members here who use them.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Patches on XAs are from near OK to near invisible, and I think some of them are blueish and others yellowish, being the later ones the worst usually, like mine... Framelines are sometimes hard to see too... I don't use flash... I've heard of the camera being sensitive to used batteries near exhaustion... There are some stories about LR44 being a problem when used instead of SR44, but I tested XA's meter using LR44 with low ISO slide film and other functions, and -at least mine- works perfectly.

Cheers,

Juan

 

[seifadiaz]

Just tested with new batteries and the self-timer works. At least it doesn't have a bad IC or something.

 

[El Jonbre Grande]

My XA patch is pretty dim to - I find myself stopping down and approximate scale focusing when on the street. Great little camera that has given me some impressive results!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Great it works!

I tested mine under direct sun with a roll of velvia100 and camera ISO set to 100: all shots perfectly exposed!

Enjoy it!

Cheers,

Juan

 

[seifadiaz]

Already figured out the flash issue. For some reason looks like an Eneloop rechargable did the job.

Now time to prepare some soup. 🙂