OM still has fans

Well I shouldn't really say all of those lenses are dreams, more of a list of lenses I plan on acquiring some day. My next purchase is probably going to be a Tamron 17/3.5 so that I have something in the ultrawide catagory, followed by the Zuiko 300/4.5 and then the Zuiko 85/2.

 

Money is a bit on the tight side until my wife starts doing her in-home day care business in the fall or I get a promotion (which might be just a couple of months off it looks like). That being said I plan on acquiring probably all three in the next year.

 

Currently I have an OM-1, OM-1n, Sigma 24/2.8, 28/1.8, Vivitar 135/3.5, 70-210/3.5, 300/5.6, 2x teleconverter, Tamron 28/2.5, 35-70/3.5, and Zuiko 50/1.4 and 50/1.8s.

 

My father's day gift is a Vivitar 285hv flash unit. I might be trying to talk my wife into a zuiko 85/2 for a christmas gift.

There is a solution to the battery leakage problem, but it's ugly. Here's the link:

http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-100.html

 

I've done it on my OM2SP and it works fine (I've used tape rather than a tripod

screw to fix the box to the camera). I've just ordered an AAA rather than AA battery

box as it'll be smaller and neater.

 

The alternative is to find a broken OM4T or OM4Ti on Ebay and use the circuit out

of that. I have no idea how to do this...

 

I also use a D300 but I'm keeping my old OMs purely because I want to keep using

my 20-year old 85mm f2 lens (the image quality is wonderful, and an OM4T with that

lens weighs less than the D300 body.)

my OM-4 is the non-TI version and the meter is fine, i've had the same batteries in it for the last 6 months. Which leads me to believe that it's got the upgraded circuit.

 

I think it was standard practice in a CLA to replace the OM-4 circuit to fix the battery leak problems. If you have an OM-4 with the battery leak you can minimise it by leaving it on the Red B or 1/60 when you're not using it.

 

My compliment of OM lenses isn't actually that great and I have plans to acquire a few more lenses in the near future. I use:

1 x OM-4

2 x OM-2

1 x OM-1

1 x OM-1n

1 x OM-20 (which I never use)

zuiko Lenses: 50/1.4, 50/1.8, 28/2.8, 100/2.8, 135/3.5

I also have a Tamron 135/2.5 and a Tokina 300/4.5 that I use fairly frequently.

 

I actually use the 100/2.8 most frequently, it's my favourite lens for walking around with, great for street photography, I find a 50mm lens a bit intrusive if you're trying to photograph people, great for studio / portrait, for my uses 100mm is *the* ideal focal length.

 

I've always been a bit hesitant about super fast lenses (ie. 50mm/1.2), you often have a tradeoff in sharpness to give you the extra speed. Then again, I hear that it's a great lens and never hear bad things about it.

Thanks for your response to my battery leakage problem.I don't believe I will attemt your solution but it,s good to know that I'm not alone.I once had my batteries fail while shooting photos of my boss and I had to revert to the manual speed og 1/60 sec and guess at the f stop.I never knew how those photos turned out as I never got a response one way or the other.I contacted Olympus Customer Service about a possible repair for this problem but they indicated that the camera is too old and they are only servicing digital equipment.They gave me the telephone numbers of two repair shops and I thik I will contact them to see if they can fix the circuits.Thanks again.

I've recently become a huge fan of the tiny lenses from Olympus. In the past 6 months I've acquired a 21mm 3.5, 24mm 2.8, 28mm 3.5 and a 50mm 1.4 -- all for use on my Canon 5D. There are actually a lot of Canon guys who really appreciate what these little lenses can do on our cameras. I'd love to get my hands on a 90mm f/2, what an excellent lens.

Joseph - putting the camera in B is supposed to help with battery life. I've only recently gotten my OM4, but the batteries are still running good after 2 months. I've been religious about storing the camera in B mode and have almost successfully programmed my brain to consider B as the OFF switch. The only thing annoying is the "B lock" button, which I also despise on the OM2... I hate safety features on anything that can't be disabled!

 

Neil - if it is any consolation, I will gladly take your 21-f/2 off of your hands... you can even pay me to take it if you want.

 

My collection is mostly dead bodies. For awhile I kept buying broken bodies hoping to come across one that just needed batteries. I did manage to get one perfectly mechanically working OM1 with a dead meter that way. Working stuff right now includes...

 

2 OM1's with errant meters, an OM4 (not Ti) and an OM10 with manual adapter as a backup. Lenses include... 24-f/2.8, 40-f/2, 50-f/1.8, 50-f/1.4 (my least favorite), 100-f/2.8, 35-70-f/3.5-4.5 (awesome little beast), 85-250-f/5 (never really shot with it)... I also have two nice Tamron lenses... 135-f/2.8, and 80-205-f/4.5 (again never shot with it). I really don't get why so many people fuss about long lenses.... are there really THAT many sports and wild-life photogs out there?

actually, i scored an OM-2 on ebay that was in perfect condition that the owner thought was broken but as it turned out the mirror was just locked up because the batteries were depleted.

 

I actually have a couple of OM-1's with dead meters I use them whenever I shoot in a studio, works great no batteries!

...another OM fan.

I still have my OM1, given to me already used, I bought a pawnshop lens for it. It was all I had for years and years. Then when digital started up, I got a few Zuiko lenses, my favorites being the 55mm & 180mm.

For quite a while, the 21/2 was my favourite lens - I'm mostly not a telephoto kind of person (I guess I'm not in the wildlife/sports area as a general rule). Not sure what is my favourite lens now, but the 21/2 will be staying with me (sorry Patrick!). Until I bought a 5D, the 21/2 made a very nice slightly wide standard lens for my 10D. The larger size of the 21/2 over the 21/3.5 was good when on a Canon body as those things are very chunky. On an OM body, I think the smaller 21/3.5 feels better (hmm, another admission of some kind of Zuikoholic issue: I also have the 21/3.5 somewhere... as I implied above, I like the wide-angle 'look' over the telephoto in general!).

 

For any pixel-peepers (or grain-inspectors) out there, the 18/3.5 is a touch sharper, but the brighter f/2 on the 21/2 more than makes up for this IMO.

I enjoy very much to read here that the OM system still has so many enthousiastic users. Among some of them are even younger than the camera itself. Indicating that the OM system has become a legendary!

 

Here are some of my personal experiences with this nice equipment. I started photographing in 1974, 14 years old at that time. After three months using my fathers Agfa 6x6 camera and making contact prints in my 'darkroom', I spent all my money I had on a SLR. It was a Practica, the only one I could afford at that time. The dutch photo magazine 'Focus' I had a subscription on, tested the Olympus OM1 and OM2. It was the only camera test from this magazine since ever there was not a single negative point of critics! Only a minor complain about the pricing, but what would you expect for a professional camera? This was the camera I wanted to have! No, I needed it! I did not accept a lesser one! It took me seven long years before I finally could afford the OM2n, thanks to a gift of my grandfather.

 

I have been using that camera during eight years while biking and mountaineering in the Alps, for social events or landscape photographing everywhere I came. Until it broke as it dropped (together with me) into a mud pool while walking on sand banks on sea to one of the northern islands of the Netherlands. Though the production of the OM2n was stopped, fortunately I still could find a new body. Together with a second, used, body I have been using the OM2n during 15 more years. Applying it for my PhD research when measuring fluid flows with tracer particles in the lab, taking computer screen shots of flow simulations for conferences and journal articles and for my thesis. I also used the cameras for stereo photographing by mounting them on a plate side by side and synchronizing the winders. This is very easy to do and I got marvelous 3-dimensional slides out of it.

 

Now, over the years the cameras have been worn out a bit and sometimes fail. As I also found the optical quality a bit limited, I have moved out to the Leica R and M systems. But when holding the OM2, I still appreciate this small, great camera of excellent design. It still can compete with cameras of this time. Its large viewer is comparable to the brightness of the Leica M and you don't have the feeling you are looking through a tunnel but have the experience the object is right in front of you. I also admire the large knobs and the typical dial ring for the shutter speed around the lens mount. One minor point, to my feeling, is the body height. It seems it is not as stable in my hands like the other cameras I am using. Though the camera is weared and I am using other equipment now, I do not consider to sell it. While the market value is very low for the OM2, the camera is too worthfull to me. After so many years of photographing with it under such different circumstances, I've got an emotional band with it. Maybe one day it will be the first analog camera of my son or daughter? Something I was dreaming of during so many years!

Great story, Gerber. I took a detour through the Leica M as well, but in the end decided

to sell it as I preferred the OM system. The only place Leica lenses were better, and for

my photography it was not important, was at the widest aperture. I decided to keep the

OM system for my remaining film use. One thing that is nice is that you can buy the

lenses so cheaply. If you don't like one, or want another sample of something, there are

many you can buy and sell for under $100. Unlike the Leica system, you simply don't

have that much money tied up unless you are a collector going for the rarest Zuiko

lenses.

hard to justify investing in a system that is maybe 10-25% better but like 500-1000% more expensive. that's my opinion on leica....

I definitely did not want to start a flame war here :) My Olympus OM2n bodies became a bit old and occasionaly left me down. Sometimes just on those critic and unique moments. So I decided to look for a new, robust and reliable camera with the best optics I could afford now, that wouldn't let me down during a journey or a moment that will never come back... Same as the OM cameras did for me during many years. Again, the OM system was, and still is, a great system that deserves its place and I like it to grasp so now and than.

Despite owning a raft of newer cameras (read: Nikon AF & numerous rangefinders, both new and old) and using Canon

and Olympus digital SLRs at the newspaper, I still cherish my OM-1n and OM-2n and an assortment of OM lenses.

 

Both of these OMs received CLA and series 2 screens* from John Hermanson (highly recomended) at Camtech in NY.

 

My 'love affair' with Olympus started with a Pen-F in the early 1960s. My current personal pet combo is the 2n with the

100/2.8, followed by the 50/3.5 macro on the same camera. The 1n is an 'Elvis' shelf king - tricked out in white cobra skin

from Camera Leather.

 

*Correction - the OM-1n has a Beatty screen (and John updated the circuits to handle 1.5v batteries.)

 

PS - You might want to check out the Olympus Users Group - another very active discussion board.

Yesterday,June 25th I loaded one of my OM4's with fresh batteries ,set the manual shutter speed dial to "B" and put

the camera away.I intend to test the batteries on a monthly basis to see how long they will last without any use.I

noticed something for the first time yesterday.When I place the shutter speed dial on either 'B" or 1/60 sec and cock

the shutter and press the release that there is no indication at all in the viewfinder that the camera is on.Is this

normal or am I doing something wrong?

One thought I had was that when the shutter speed dial is set to either of these two manual settings the circuits in

the camera are disabled which may explain your success with this method..Any thoughts about this?

Joseph, my thought is that you ought to put some film through that lovely camera and see how long the batteries last... or better still just carry some spares and not think too much about it. Make some pictures and enjoy using your camera.

I just checked the OM4 that I stored with fresh batteries on June 24th and I am happy to inform you that your solution to battery drainage by setting the shutter speed dial to "b" is working fine.I will check it again in another month and report back.Thanks for the tip.