Olympus XA 1

[photax]

Hi !

This Olympus XA-1 once was a non-working, but in almost new cosmetically condition, flea market found for less than 2.-. Yesterday I unscrewed the base plate to see why this camera was not working and found out that two gear wheels had no contact, this was hardly visible to the naked eye. I unscrewed the metal one that`s connected with the film advance knob and installed it reverse again. It took me 5 minutes and now the shutter is working perfectly. I tried this on some other cameras before. I don’t know why the cameras are working again after turning round one or two gear wheels, but sometimes this is an effective method. Maybe one side of the wheel could be worn off, so it does not fit perfectly into the counterpart.
The early 1980`s XA-1 is a very simple camera, I guess the simplest of the XA series, but it works without battery.
In five minutes from the drawer into the shelf ;D

MIK

[Doug T.]

MIK,
Nice find! I think you may be right about the gears being worn. Looks like you've hit on an excellent solution
I really like the XA cameras, they take nice shots, and are tiny. I've been looking for tiny, good quality cameras lately.
I think they made the XAs in different colors as well.
Doug

[Deleted]

I've never seen an XA model with that type of sensor (or whatever it is, around the lens. The XA was the best because if had a coupled rangefinder --the later ones were zone focus. I once found an XA at a thrift shop that didn't work. I took it home and messed around with it, removed the lens, then discovered if I had taken off the boom plate a tripped one cam that was hung up, the camera would have been fine. The XA series may have had the sharpest lens put on a P&S camera.

[photax]

Doug,
you are right, the XA-series had been excellent cameras. Once I found a blue XA-2, the picture of it is somewhere hidden in the "rangefinder" or "viewfinder" category ( I always get confused by this two titles, we dont make a difference here ).

Wayne,
the ring around the lens is the selenium light meter. If I disassemble a camera, I always remove the base plate first, because 50% of the mechanical problems can be solved there

MIK