Topic: Olympus XA woes

[chris667]

Hello

I recently bought an Olympus XA. A great camera....
... until I dropped it walking out of my house.

The shutter sounds as if it is working OK. If I cover the lens up, it stays open until I move my hand away and expose to light. But the shutter speed needle on the left appears to be jerking up and down.

Is it terminal, do you think? Or is it something I might be able to fix?

[02Pilot]

The XA, for reasons known only to Olympus engineers, has two separate meters: one for the shutter, and one for the viewfinder. You probably have a cracked solder joint somewhere, but I'd suggest you do a test to see if it's exposing correctly. If it is, I'd just suck it up and live with the jumpy needle in the VF.

[Indofunk]

Same exact thing happened to me. I also lost a chunk of the clamshell and the shutter button. It worked fine except for the cosmetics and slight annoyance of the VF needle and the fact that opening and closing the clamshell was inconvenient. I ended up sending it to a self-proclaimed XA expert on Long Island, but if you PM me I'll explain some of the woes that produced 

The upshot is that I now have a well-working XA with a new clamshell and shutter button

[Indofunk]

Oh, how's the RF patch now? Mine apparently got dislodged and became completely useless. Of course, even in the best of circumstances the RF patch is nearly-invisible, so no huge loss there

[chris667]

Well, I asked my local repair guy.

He has said that it is not really economical. It's a shame, because I have learned to love the camera, but now, it is for situations where I know I won't need to worry the shutter speed will be set low.

And on a  completely unrelated note, one of my friends on Facebook put a post up asking if anyone wanted his Rollei B35. We did a deal, and I have just loaded its first film. So I still have a tiny camera!

[Francois]

Well. If it's not worth getting it fixed, it might be worth fixing it yourself.
You just need some sort of continuity tester to fix it.
My guess is that it's something pretty simple to fix since it used to work. Could just be a part that got dislodged when it was dropped.
The XA is fairly straightforward to take apart. Just don't loose the roller bearing that makes the front lid lock.

[kentish cob]

Of course, even in the best of circumstances the RF patch is nearly-invisible, so no huge loss there

I kind of lost the love for my XA due to the RF patch being so faint as to be almost useless (of course, nothing to do with my failing eyesight...  ), but yesterday I read about the "little square of tape on the viewfinder window trick"... what a revelation... just five minutes of trial and error with size and position, and the RF patch is clearer and more "contrasty" than I've ever known it... Love restored. 

[Indofunk]

Of course, even in the best of circumstances the RF patch is nearly-invisible, so no huge loss there

I kind of lost the love for my XA due to the RF patch being so faint as to be almost useless (of course, nothing to do with my failing eyesight...  ), but yesterday I read about the "little square of tape on the viewfinder window trick"... what a revelation... just five minutes of trial and error with size and position, and the RF patch is clearer and more "contrasty" than I've ever known it... Love restored. 

I tried that and it didn't really make a difference to me ... I even tried contrasting colored gels on the RF window and VF window (blue and yellow), still no big difference... Maybe it was the kind of tape or position that made a difference?

[chris667]

I know it's obvious, but I found a damned good clean of the window really helped.

[kentish cob]

Of course, even in the best of circumstances the RF patch is nearly-invisible, so no huge loss there

...but yesterday I read about the "little square of tape on the viewfinder window trick"... what a revelation... just five minutes of trial and error with size and position, and the RF patch is clearer and more "contrasty" than I've ever known it... Love restored. 

I tried that and it didn't really make a difference to me ... I even tried contrasting colored gels on the RF window and VF window (blue and yellow), still no big difference... Maybe it was the kind of tape or position that made a difference?

I just used some black mount (mat) bevel wrapping tape, but the video I saw on youtube looked like it used electrical tape...
Size and position, as mentioned, took a little trial and error, my first attempt was a bit oversized, and it appears the critical position would be dependent on exactly how you hold the camera to your eye.
This is what works for me.
It's about 2mm x 1mm, and is too close to my eye to affect what I'm seeing through the veiwfinder, but dramatically improves the RF patch.
 

[Indofunk]

Ok, thanks, very different from what I tried  I'll try that out soon, if not now 

[Indofunk]

Hey! It works!  I see what's going on ... you're essentially blocking the VF, so instead of looking at 2 overlapping images from the RF & VF, you're just seeing the RF image. So the new focusing technique is to match the RF patch to the surrounding image instead of trying to get the 2 overlapping images to match. I'll shoot it like this for a little while and see how things work out. Thanks for the tip! 

[Bryan]

Another way to do it is to put a colored gel filter over the viewfinder.  A light amber color works well.  This works by darkening the viewfinder thus making the rangefinder patch stand out more because it will not have the amber color.  A cleared section of color film will work just as well if you don't have any gel filters. 

[Bryan]

This has a good example of what I was talking about, just a different camera.

http://elekm.net/pages/cameras/repair_signet_rf.htm

[Indofunk]

Another way to do it is to put a colored gel filter over the viewfinder.  A light amber color works well.  This works by darkening the viewfinder thus making the rangefinder patch stand out more because it will not have the amber color.  A cleared section of color film will work just as well if you don't have any gel filters.

That's what I tried before and it didn't make a difference ... this trick makes a huge difference.

[Bryan]

I'm going to be working on my Signet 35 this week so I'll try both methods to see which works best.  Just like the XA that's my biggest complaint about the Signet 35, otherwise it takes great pictures with the Ektar lens. 

[kentish cob]

Hey! It works!  I see what's going on ... you're essentially blocking the VF, so instead of looking at 2 overlapping images from the RF & VF, you're just seeing the RF image. So the new focusing technique is to match the RF patch to the surrounding image instead of trying to get the 2 overlapping images to match. I'll shoot it like this for a little while and see how things work out. Thanks for the tip! 

To be honest, I hadn't really thought about the technical aspects of the cause/effect/solution... I thought it was all done by magic...

Anyway... I've just tried Bryan's suggestion with a piece of cleared colour neg, and that also works a treat, so I'm now spoiled for choice. I think I'll leave it like this for now...

[Francois]

I might try the color gel trick on my Franka. The rangefinder is so dim that I wonder if the mirror is still there!

But first, I'll have to figure out how to pry off the lid... even with all the screws out it's still holding on tight...

[02Pilot]

Some RFs come with a smoked glass spot built into the VF - my Canon P has one. For DIY, I prefer to make a dot with a Sharpie permanent marker - you can vary the darkness/opacity of it until you are happy with the result.

[Indofunk]

Some RFs come with a smoked glass spot built into the VF - my Canon P has one. For DIY, I prefer to make a dot with a Sharpie permanent marker - you can vary the darkness/opacity of it until you are happy with the result.

AND it's easily removable with a little bit of alcohol!