Hi Dan -- One possibility - the meter needle in the XA is sort of 'for
advisory purposes only' -- the actual shutter speed could be different if
the meter circuitry is out of adjustment. There are some little
potentiometers in there that are used to set the actual shutter speed, and
there is one that is used to set the meter needle indicated speed. If there
has been any drift or the setting got tweaked, your XA could show 1/15 in
the finder but the shutter actually go off at 1/60 (of course this could go
the other way too). Resetting or even checking this requires a calibrated
light source and a shutter speed tester, then you measure the actual
exposure at a set LV on the light source, and see if its right. If not,
adjust and test the shutter again. Then once that is set, set the meter
needle in the finder to correspond to the speed the shutter will really fire
at... I'd imagine all this gets checked and set in a CLA...
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-'s of all sorts, and no OM-oney...
and one XA factory repair manual that explains all this...
> From: "Daniel Mitchell" <danmitchell@xxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 16:14:57 -0600
> To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [OM] XA low-light metering?
>
> I was just playing around with my XA and I noticed something;
>
> Shooting indoors, artificial light, f5.6/400 film (say), the OM2S (with a
> 35mm lens on it) reads at 1/60th. The XA reads at 1/15th.
>
> Now, doing the same comparison in daylight the next day (at f16 to keep in
> range) they both read 1/400th or so, as I'd expect.
>
> I didn't do tests as the sun came up, but I get the impression that the
> XA's light meter tends to be under-sensitive in lower light conditions. I
> changed the batteries, that didn't help; am I right here, or is there
> something else going on?
>
> thanks,
>
> -- dan (just about to get out the acetone again, sticky magnet just hit
> again..)
>
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