Olympus XA ISO settings

[essjayyell]

I just purchased a nice little XA and noticed the ISO settings seem to go up from 25 to 800 in strange increments. It goes -

25 . . 50 . . 100 . . 200 . . 400 . . 800

Here is a photo to explain it better

Can someone tell me what ISO value each dot in between the numbers would represent?

 

[Orrin]

Most films these days are 50, 100, 200, 400, etc. so you really don't need
the in-between settings, but they are:

25-32-40-50-64-80-100-125-160-200-250-320-400-500-640-800

 

[Big Mike]

It's common for 'stops' to be measured in 1/2 or 1/3 increments. So you could think of it as ISO 200 + 1/3.

 

[Don Simon]

If you're confident in the camera's meter and want to shoot at the film's standard rating then you could just set it to the labelled ISO, but otherwise you could presumably use the increments for exposure compensation.

 

[jwkwd]

Great little camera, I have had one since they first came out.

 

[essjayyell]

Thanks a lot for the help

 

[Patrice]

"...otherwise you could presumably use the increments for exposure compensation."

That is exactly how you use the steeings since the camera is strictly aperture priority. There is also the little tab on the bottom back of the camera that is used for a one and a half stop increment for backlit subjects.

The pressure sensitive switch (the square red button on top) that activates the shutter tends to get dirty contacts. It's a simple enough matter to take the camera body apart and clean up that contact.

 

[Don Simon]

Thanks for clearing that up. I said 'presumably' because the later XA2/3 (compacts with zone focus and no manual exposure control) have DX coding which would override those settings and I thought that might be the case with some later XAs but apparently not.

Btw it is simple enough to take the body apart... but less simple to find the little ball-bearing from the sliding cover once you drop it on the floor

 

[Patrice]

Btw it is simple enough to take the body apart... but less simple to find the little ball-bearing from the sliding cover once you drop it on the floor

I know what you mean, the second time I had to do it, I made sure it was over a big mixing bowl!

 

[Mitica100]

Thanks for clearing that up. I said 'presumably' because the later XA2/3 (compacts with zone focus and no manual exposure control) have DX coding which would override those settings and I thought that might be the case with some later XAs but apparently not.

Btw it is simple enough to take the body apart... but less simple to find the little ball-bearing from the sliding cover once you drop it on the floor

Don't ever despair over losing the little ball-bearing, there are plenty to be found in pens like BIC. A little push with a needle is all you need and the little ball comes out. Washing it with alcohol makes it ready to go in place.