(This is a bit late as it got bounced last week due to network outage. - Brian)
Hi Wayne,
you wrote:
>> I have just purchased an XA. I have had a play with it and think I have
>> figured out most of what I need to operate it, however I have a few
>> questions:
Congrats on your new acquisition. I think they're great little
cameras, I got mine secondhand in 1987 and I've probably used
it more than anything else since then. Only had to replace the
batteries once, too.
>> 1. Where is the sensor for the auto exposure ?
Just above the lens. There are actually two CdS cells behind there (or
maybe once double cell) one for controlling the shutter and one for the
finder display.
>> 2. What is the longest exposure time ? Is it dependent on ISO setting ?
I think the books say 8 or 10 seconds, but mine seems to go a bit
longer (30 sec?) and still give good results for night pictures.
I don't think it's a well-defined limit (the circuitry is all-
-analogue, I believe, so there's no discrete timer) but will depend
on the maximum resistance (i.e. in darkness) of the meter cell. This
may vary between samples. Film speed setting on the XA moves a mask
to restrict the amount of light arriving at the sensor, (as opposed
to controlling a resistance in series with the meter cell) so the
film speed setting won't extend this limit.
CdS is much less sensitive to low light-levels than silicon, and there
may be a lot of variation between different XA's, so YMMV.
>> 3. Are there any tricks or traps I should know about with this camera ?
Traps:
If the aperture lever gets pushed up to the "flash" position the
shutter fires at a fixed speed of 1/60 or so. The mechanism is
supposed to stop the lever moving this far if the flash isn't fitted,
but this doesn't always work.
The metering pattern seems to be more horizontal than vertical (or vice-
-versa) so that the reading is affected more drastically by varying
amounts of sky when held in "portrait" position.
The back catch on XA's can be dodgy. I've had no trouble on mine, but
my XA4 has popped open a couple of times (well OK, the first time I
dropped it) so I tape it shut now.
Tricks:
The selftimer lever helps the camera to stand on a level surface
when it's pulled out to the "on" position. Good for night pics.
With a bit of practice you can preset both focus and aperture by
touch with the camera still in your pocket.
When the back is open (for loading) the shutter will fire at a
fixed (short) speed to allow wind-on (XA4 doesn't do this).
The flash aperture is f4, but if the flash is on and charged it
will fire at any of the other aperture settings. You can use this
to control the flash/ambient ratio for daylight fill flash, e.g.
by setting f5.6 to give a 50 0.000000ill ratio. You may need to tweak
the film speed setting up to lower the ambient exposure.
Also, I don't yet know how this will apply to the XA, but I've
successfully fitted a behind-the-lens #25 gel filter to my
XA4 for B&W and IR use. It seemed almost to be be designed
for it and required no gluing or taping.
Hope some of this helps.
-Brian
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