Olympus XA1

Submitted by Mile23 on Sun, 08/07/2005 - 16:31

I found another Olympus XA-series camera at a thrift store for $3 (marked $5.99, half-off sale day). Of course, it's an XA1, which is the fixed-focus selenium-meter version. It's got the quality D-Zuiko optics, but it's more like an instamatic than its rangefinder XA brethren.

I found some images of the XA1 manual online.

The XA1 has a somewhat mechanically complicated and seemingly delicate system to prevent you from shooting before the flash unit recharges, or from taking double exposures. On the specimen I have, you can't release the shutter or wind the film winder unless the flash unit is attached and turned on. So add repairing this thing to the list of stuff I really shouldn't have time to do, but do anyway.

Nevertheless... The other XA is very happy to expose film to light, so I think it's time to take it downtown and shoot candids.

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