OM-3 Spot metering question

<p>David wrote:<br /> <strong><em>"If you place the spot on the wall and press the "spot" button, the camera places a rhombus at -3 (3 stops to the right of the central index mark). The bar also stops at that -3 stop point."</em></strong><br /><br /> That's what confused me. The rhombus symbol is placed at -4. It's always no matter what -1 stop compared to the bar graph. <br /><br /> Is that an error? <br /><br /> The user manual shows that what you say is correct, but it's not the same on my camera. <br /> This is confusing for a beginner like me:-)<br /> <br />(But the number of stops between the rhombus symbols are correct though. but it would have been easier if it just folloed the bar graph as you said it does.)</p>

<p>Sarah I'll have to pull out my OM-4 when I get home and do an actual run through instead of visualizing it from memory. In the meantime, is the exposure compensation* set to zero? I hardly ever use mine, so I don't know how it might affect the relationship between the exposure bar and a single spot reading.<br /> *forgive me if this is obvious - the exposure compensation dial is built into the ISO dial. On the "-2 to +2" scale immediately to the left of the rewind knob, the index mark should be at zero - any other setting is effectively telling the camera to override the meter reading and deliberately over- or underexpose.</p>

<p>Omg how embarrassing:-) it was on -1. Ups...<br>

Thank you very much David:-)</p>

<p>If wind mechanism is not latching properly after each wind, you may be on the edge of a serious wind mechanism jam. John</p>

<p>Ok they are fixing it in the store. <br>

I also got a Contax S2 with a 25mm 2.8 at a very good price. </p>

<p>Sarah was my info helpful on shadow/highlight buttons? Were you able to test it out? The Olympus OM-3 is really one of the best manual 35mm film cameras for the highlight/shadow feature. I know you wanted a 35mm film camera that could spot meter all white/black subjects properly without under/over exposure. Patrick Dempsey also mentioned the highlight/shadow buttons. It was not really talked about in depth however though on how it works with the spot meter. Basically you just aim the spot on your all white/black subject the brightest/darkest areas after pressing the spot you just press the highlight/shadow accordingly (don't press both HL/SDW buttons!) and adjust your aperture/shutter speed accordingly for exposure. As David Caroll mentioned it's a really great camera for understanding the Zone System.</p>

<p>BTW the Contax S2b has center weighted metering much like the OM-3 vs the Contax S2 which is only spot meter. Have fun with your new cameras! :)</p>