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Howard
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 08:19 am: | 
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Hi Folks. I recently acquired a nice XA which appears to work fine except for the fact that it is hard to take a photo at the exact moment that you choose. Sometimes the shutter fires on cue, other times you end up pressing quite hard and nothing happens. it seem to depend on which part of the orange plate that you press. If I use my fingernail and press on the leading edge (lens side of the camera)it generally works, but if I just use my fingertip in the middle of the plate more often that not it doesn't fire, so I have to try again with my fingernail at the front edge to get it to fire. It makes it very difficult to take a spontaneous shot.
I prised off the orange plate and undid and removed the retaining screw, but the tiny size of the various bits and pieces scared me. I managed to juggle it all back together again and blew it out with some compressed air and with the plate still off it seemed to work quite well, but after carefully gluing the plate back on again it seems to be no better.
Any suggestions as to what might help, or should I just learn to live with it. |
Ezio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 23, 2004 - 09:13 am: |
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I had a similar problem with a XA2 and this MAY be the same reason. If your camera works fine without the plate but not with the plate on, I'll bet the culprit is a slight deformation that causes the plate no longer fitting properly in its opening. You should try to gently work on the plate's sides and angles with some very fine sand paper. |
Al
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 12:40 pm: |
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I saw a nice clean XA go on ebay yesterday for $69. Maybe it works fine, maybe not. I love my XA and if it started acting up like yours I would just send it to John Hermanson and get it gone through and ready for another 30 years of great service for $79. Pull him up at:
http://www.zuiko.com/PAGE5.HTML
In fact, he offers repair tips and if it's an easy one he may be able to just help you online.
Another great XA site is:
http://www.diaxa.com/xa/xa.htm
I'm affiliated with no one; just an XA and XA2 fan like yourself. |
Charles Fallis
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 01:22 pm: |
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Evidently, the bottom of the "orange plate" (shutter button) is deformed. At some time in the past, someone probably pressed VERY heavily on the shutter button and deformed it. Simply sanding the bottom of the plastic shutter button flat MIGHT be enough in itself. What I would do though is sand it on the bottom enough to get a tooth, apply a little dab of epoxy putty to the bottom to build it up just a bit and then sand the putty to shape. |
Howard
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 25, 2004 - 02:08 am: |
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Thanks for the suggestions guys. I tried what you suggested Ezio and it has improved it quite a bit. The shutter button does look as if is has had a hard time even though the rest of the camera is very good. I might look at the epoxy route or perhaps try to locate or make a better button if it keeps frustrating me. Al, unfortuately because I live in Australia, the cost of sending it to the USA for repairs plus the dollar exchange rate would make the exercise just too expensive. |
Kevin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 26, 2004 - 07:57 am: |
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you could probably get an XA2 for $10 on ebay. I wanted a flash for my XA and got the XA2 w/flash for $11.50. most of the parts a the same if your'e not messing with the lens.
plus I switched the backdoors, the XA was scratched up. |
Neil
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 03, 2005 - 05:08 pm: |
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Hello,
I have a similar problem with an XA2, only mine doesn't fire at all when I depress the shutter release!
I took it apart and had a fiddle, but a very small silver metal cylinder fell out when I took off the top cover. Can any one tell me where this component belongs?
There is no obvious place for it to be put back in...
Any help appreciated.
Thanks,
Neil |
