olympus xa

[janto]

I bought one from a thrift store. I put alkaline LR44 batteries, but the shutter fires, but has erratic speed. The writing in the battery compartment says silver oxide, do I need silver oxide batts to get it to work correctly?

thanks

 

[dslater]

I bought one from a thrift store. I put alkaline LR44 batteries, but the shutter fires, but has erratic speed. The writing in the battery compartment says silver oxide, do I need silver oxide batts to get it to work correctly?

thanks

If your alkaline batteries are brand new, then you're probably O.K. for a little while. The problem with alkaline batteries is that as they are used, their voltage falls. silver oxide batteries maintain a more constant voltage throughout their life.

 

[Anscojohn]

I bought one from a thrift store. I put alkaline LR44 batteries, but the shutter fires, but has erratic speed. The writing in the battery compartment says silver oxide, do I need silver oxide batts to get it to work correctly?

thanks

******
Try cleaning the battery contacts with a pencil eraser. BTW, is the shutter erratic at the same f setting and under the same lighting condition. That camera, IIRC, does exposure control by changing the shutter speed. It's an XA, right, and not an XA2?

 

[janto]

It's an XA. For a given ISO and f setting and under the same light condition, it fires random speed, but more frequently at the longest one, probably ~5-10s. If I enabled the flash, the shutter fires at consistent speed, probably faster than 1/30.
Does anyone have the repair manual?

 

[mabman]

One other thing to watch on the XA - if you accidentally depress the film rewind button (like, say, while in your pocket), it will still let you wind the film and cock the shutter, but the shutter won't release, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get it unstuck easily...

Happened to me on vacation several months ago - very frustrating. I haven't gotten it fixed, but I did pick up it's older, slightly larger and more metal cousin, the 35 RC - it seems to be quite sturdy, and has a really good lens (although it's shutter-priority instead of the XA's aperture-priority).

Anyway, just my $0.02.

 

[Chan Tran]

There is a free service manual here:
http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/repairmanuals.html

 

[Steve Roberts]

I bought one from a thrift store. I put alkaline LR44 batteries, but the shutter fires, but has erratic speed. The writing in the battery compartment says silver oxide, do I need silver oxide batts to get it to work correctly?

thanks

Coincidentally, I bought an XA2 yesterday at a car boot sale for one of our English pounds. It's completely dead, but inside the battery compartment I was surprised to see that it specifies LR44s, not SR. I also have an XA which sometimes behaves erratically, giving an obviously different shutter speed to the one indicated by the meter. For some perverse reason, I understand that the meter and shutter are controlled by two separate cells. I've never put a film through it so don't know whether the meter indication or actual shutter speed used is correct (or perhaps neither!)

Good luck!

Steve

 

[Joe Brugger]

My XA has always been sensitive to batteries, and works much, much better with silver oxide cells than alkalines. They silver cells should still be pretty easy to find and last a long time.

 

[andrewc]

XA vs. 35RC

One other thing to watch on the XA - if you accidentally depress the film rewind button (like, say, while in your pocket), it will still let you wind the film and cock the shutter, but the shutter won't release, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get it unstuck easily...

Happened to me on vacation several months ago - very frustrating. I haven't gotten it fixed, but I did pick up it's older, slightly larger and more metal cousin, the 35 RC - it seems to be quite sturdy, and has a really good lens (although it's shutter-priority instead of the XA's aperture-priority).

Anyway, just my $0.02.

The 35RC is certainly a great alternative to the XA; in fact I find that I enjoy it more, mainly due to the increased level of control that I have, and because it feels sturdier.

 

[Anscojohn]

Does not the 35 RC take old style mercury batteries?

 

[removed account4]

sometimes the magnet ( for the shutter ) stops working the "right way"
if it is still erratic after the battery change ...