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From the daily archives: Monday, July 13, 2009
I wanted one of these back in 1975, but they cost a couple of hundred bucks. I just bought one at a thrift store, where it had been tossed in a pile of cheap point-and-shoot cameras. It’s in good shape and it seems to work. Price? Ninety cents. They go for $25-80 on eBay.
The Olympus XA has been described as the camera that professional photographers carry on their vacations. The 6 element F.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8 lens is extremely sharp, especially past f/5.6 where it reaches 56lpm. Unique to carry-along point-and-shoots, the XA has a completely coupled rangefinder down to 0.9 meters as well as full aperture-priority metering. It even has a +1.5 exposure compensation for backlighting.
The design by Yoshihisa Maitani of Olympus is simply brilliant. It has a body not much larger than the Minox 35, but without the cumbersome folding lens mechanism. The electronic shutter is extremely accurate and the XA series takes LR/SR44 batteries that are still commonly available. It is truly a masterpiece design and it is difficult to believe that it was introduced in 1975, over twenty five years ago.
Somebody didn’t get the memo about going quietly into that good night:
French workers threaten to blow up factory • The Register
Workers at a bankrupt French car parts factory have decided that the best way to get some redundancy cash is to threaten to blow up the factory.
According to Autocar, the 366 belligerent ex-employees of New Fabris in Chatellerault have seized the premises and are ready and willing to detonate stockpiled gas bottles unless Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën cough 30k for each worker – to match the amount the two car makers apparently paid to 200 former employees of another defunct supplier.
Renault and PSA accounted for 90 per cent of the factory’s output. There are car parts with an estimated value of €2m still inside, along with a Renault machine worth another €2m. The companies have until 31 July to stump up the cash or face the consequences.
Guy Eyermann, CGT union official and secretary of the company works council, insisted: “The gas bottles are in the factory. Everything has been planned for it to blow up.”
[more at link]
today’s moodcat
