Bought a Brand New Olympus XA and need some Advice

<p>I own an XA and love that camera, but its pretty worn. So I finally found one on EBAY that was brand new in the box never before opened. The guy bought it new and never used it once. I was skeptical, but took a shot and the bidding ended at $125.00.<br>

I just got the camera and it truly is new. Its amazing how smooth the action is and the slide mechanism opens and closes like butter,<br>

The lens looks perfect and like it was just made yesterday. So I am very happy to have take a step back in time and gotten this new, hopefully I can use it for the next 20 years. <br>

But there is one issue, there is a foam padding inside the camera near the door hinge and a bit that seems to act like a seal around the door panel. That foam seems to have disinterated from sitting, and now when I touch it its a gooey sticky peeling area. Is this going to be a problem?<br>

Can a camera shop replace it and should I ?</p>

<p>This is a fairly common problem with older cameras - the foam can come apart just from sitting around for too long. See <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/olympusxa/discuss/164874/">this thread</a> - there's a guy who replaced his and drew a diagram of the foam pieces used.</p>

<p>John Hermanson at Cam-Tech is an expert repairman on all things Olympus.</p>

<p>http://www.zuiko.com/</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I just cleaned mine out with alcohol and kept on shooting... I have not noticed any major light leaks yet.</p>

<p>A camera that's been sitting for 20+ years unused, is not necessarily in good working order. John, www.zuiko.com</p>

<p>My XA-1 with deteriorated seals had terrible light leaks, so it could be a problem. I don't think the XA(1,2) is one of those lucky cameras where the seals are hardly needed - it really needs the seals to be in good shape, I suspect around the hinge is where it is most important.</p>

<p>I've since bought the light seal kit from "interslice" on eBay and repaired the seals. I'd never done it before, but it wasn't too hard. The link above has good advice too, although I don't think you really need to cut the entire seal out of one piece of felt. You could use multiple strips if you apply them close together.</p>

<p>All original XA's have foam around the inside of the back cover. Some have it in the top and bottom slots of the body, some have it only in the top slot. John,</p>

<p>I just bought a seal kit from here:<br>

http://www.northwestcamerarepair.com/used_equipment/light%20seal%20kits/light.seal.kits.html<br>

I downloaded the pdf file here:<br>

http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/seal/Olympus_XA.pdf<br>

I just finished replacing these this afternoon. I am waiting for the seals to dry (overnight) and I will run a roll through the XA tomorrow. I shoot mostly digital now, but this was my Mom's camera and the only film camera I now own, so I thought I'd try a roll of film now and then.</p>

<p>There is a man named Goodman who can furish light seals and insructions. If you do a search for camera light seals you can probably find him. He lists on Ebay also.</p>

<p>Jon Goodman is "interslice" on eBay. His light seal replacement instructions are hosted here:<br>

<a href="http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/sealreplacement.html">http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/sealreplacement.html</a><br>

The kit is worth it and pretty reasonable. Finding all those different thicknesses of foam, felt, etc would be difficult on your own. I got the larger kit and have been going through my whole collection replacing seals.</p>