Nikon FM2 or Olympus OM4?

<p>After years of shooting digital I recently rediscovered the joys of shooting with film due to a little Olympus XA-1 rangefinder that I scored off of Ebay for $40. I've decided that I want to pick up a "modern classic" SLR for high ISO, infrared, and long exposure work. I owned an Olympus OM4 about ten years ago and it was just about the nicest, most intuitive camera I've ever held. The thing was lightweight, sized perfectly, built like a tank, had spot metering that could average seven samples, in addition to excellent aperture priority metering. My inclination is to pick up another OM4, but here's the thing: I've only ever owned Olympus cameras. I've had two OM-1n's, the OM4, a modern Olympus digital kit, and now the XA-1. It really seems like I should try something new - perhaps the Nikon FM2. Have any of you had direct experience with both an Olympus OM3/4 and a Nikon FM2? How do they compare? Is there another modern classic SLR in the same price range that has ever triggered admiration every time you pulled it from the bag? I'm going for sex appeal - I've got a serious digital kit and don't need to replace it - I just want a classic for technical special occasions.</p>

<p>My first SLR was an OM1, then got another, then an OM2. Loved them but changed for Nikon when Olympus slacked off a bit with their after-sales and repairs.<br>

I got a pair of FM2's and an FE2, then F3's and F4's, and although I now use Canon digital I still have the FM2's and wont ever part with them.<br>

They are a pleasure to use, robust, reliable and reassuringly well made. Huge range of lenses availble s/h for them. I'd recommend them highly.</p>

<p> If it were me I would go with the FM2 because of the manual operation, high quality and minimum of electronics. For long exposure you can just use a cable release and expose easily for any lengthy time period that you would like. The FM2/FM2n is a classic and with great dependibility (the light meter takes a modern easy to get battery). I am not familiar with the OM series.</p>

<p>I used OM2's and OM4's for years before switching to Nikon. Olympus cameras had many great feature as you mention, but they ultimately proved unreliable, and required servicing for multiple problems, mostly electronic. Given their advanced age now, I would not consider an OM3/4 for just that reason, even though I still love the size, handling and features of the series.<br>

Any of the Nikon FM's would be a great choice. I especially like the FM3a, but all are beautifully built, reliable cameras. I highly recommend them, especially since so many great lenses and accessories are readily available on the used market. Clean used Olympus gear is much harder to find than Nikon.</p>

<p>Recently i bought a nikon 135mm f/2.8 manual lens. It's very nice and i am now looking too at FM2. It is smaller than my digital kamera and you will not be sory if someone will brake your camera in extreme situation. For example in riot :)</p>

<p>Sex appeal? lol, try a Ferrari in a saturated primary colour. Geeessshhh. Disgusted, Bob</p>

<p>Go with Nikon, simply because the used market is flooded with rediculously low priced Nikon gear. Great pro lens on the cheap. I still have my Nikons (no sense is selling at currrent prices) and am constantly amazed at how low prices have gone for this great equipment. If small is what you want , go FM2 or FE2. Both great cameras.</p>

<p>I really enjoyed my OM-1 and modest Zuikos for travel. Those Zuikos with 49mm filter threads were very compact and everything fit in a Lowe Off Trail, their smallest waist pack. I could fit the OM-1, 75-150/4, 50/1.4, 28/2.8 and 50/3.5 macro and T-20 flash in that waist bag, along with polarizer filter and closeup diopter, film, batteries, lens cleaning stuff, etc. Unloading that tiny bag was funny, like the scene with Mad Max at Bartertown where he keeps pulling out what seems like dozens of weapons.</p>

<p>Never a problem with reliability with the OM-1, tho' my OM-2N electronics did croak. Only reason I finally sold the kit was because I didn't want to bother with two separate systems and had switched mostly to Nikons.</p>

<p>I tried the OM-4T and really liked the metering option. While I never bought an OM-4T I was impressed enough with the multi-spot reading system that it influenced my decision to buy the Olympus C-3040Z, my first digicam, which offered the same type of metering. Handy enough that I actually used the Olympus digicam's spotmetering in place of my old Pentax Spotmeter V for metering ISO 100-400 films in my meterless medium format cameras. Very nifty feature.</p>

<p>My first Nikons were the F3HP and FM2N and I continued using the OM-1 alongside those for a few years. Honestly, there's not that much difference between the OM-1 and FM2N, the latter arguably being Nikon's most OM-like camera. Olympus influenced many makers of 35mm SLRs to offer more compact models and Nikon did pretty well with the FM and comparably sized SLRs. But I can't squeeze the FM2N and 52mm filter thread Nikkors into the same Lowe Off Trail waist bag that neatly held my entire Olympus kit. The Nikon stuff is just very slightly bulkier.</p>

<p>If you really think you'll make use of the sophisticated multi-spot reading capability of the OM-4T, go for it. Terrific camera. Especially if you use flash. But if I was going to get another OM I'd get the OM-1N and have John Hermanson CLA it and do the battery mod. The crappy accessory flash shoes for the early OMs were junk (I fixed mine so many times it was mostly made of super glue and pocket lint). But if you really need to use flash the PC socket works. I just gave up on the flash and used the OM-1 for available light stuff.</p>

<p>The OM-1 and OM-4 models have true mirror lockup, one of the few weaknesses of the FM2N. The FM2N mirror lockup is activated as part of the self-timer. It works okay, but isn't handy for critical timing of the shutter release. On the other hand, the Nikon system closes the lens aperture before triggering the shutter, so it actually produces very slightly less vibration than the OM-1, which does not pre-fire the aperture before the shutter. A minor difference that would only be noticeable on rare occasions.</p>

<p>And do I dare bring the "b" word into the mix? Aww, hell... too late, I already did it. Zuikos generally have better bokeh than Nikkors. Even the humble 75-150/4 Zuiko had remarkably good bokeh for a zoom. The 50/1.4 Zuiko was truly lovely, even stopped down. Nikkors tend to be overcorrected to minimize spherical aberration, so they're very sharp and contrasty but tend toward harsher bokeh with straight edges doubled, what I used to call "cross-eyed" bokeh but purists call nisen-bokeh.</p>

<p>The Olympus Om4 was one of the most enjoyable camera I have ever owned. I puchased mine used from a thrift shop when ebay was not around. Since then, I have owned and still own an FE2 and a FM2. The thing I liked about the Olympus was the spot metering and the size of the camera and lenses. Olympus as a company allways made smaller lenses for their SLR and were steps ahead in innovations. <br>

As far as comparing both cameras, I purchased the FM2 because I wanted a purely Mechanical camera that I could use in any weather. The FE2 was a little more automated, but both cameras have excellent metering. However, because the OM4 has spot and average metering you could do more with it. <br>

I once compared a roll of 36 exposures and 90% of the exposures with the FE2, OM4 and were dead-on while with my more sophisticated AF camera, I could only produce about 50% of a 36 exp. roll that was properly exposed.<br>

Tell you the truth, the reason I did not purchase another OM4(I saddly traded in the first) was because I have so much invested in Nikon manual lenses and Canon AF lenses. Another problem with the Olympus is that there were reports of problems with the electrical system. Not sure if this is true, but if you plan on buying another used OM4 I would check on it.</p>

<p>One of the features of the FM2 that I love, yet not mentioned above (unless I carelessly missed it), is the ability to lock up the mirror w/ use of the self timer. It's a wonderful camera with which to enjoy the film experience.</p>

<p>IMHO, FM2N's rule!!!! Then the F2's, then the F3's....</p>

<p>Don't know about "sex appeal", but if you want a camera that "triggered admiration every time you pulled it from the bag", in my experience that has happened most consistently with my twin-lens reflex cameras (not with any of my SLRs or rangefinders) - people will talk to you, or talk about your TLR, or both. And in terms of image quality, a well-composed/exposed 6x6 negative from a $100 TLR will comfortably exceed the quality achievable with a 35mm camera that may cost much more.</p>