Film Camera Week for March 8

Hope to have some more photos in a week or so, including some test shots from this Olympus FTL. It's not every day that you run across one of these, especially for $16 with the Zuiko 1.4 lens attached. It was a bit grubby when I got it, but cleaned up nicely.

Olympus FTL

The rare FTL. What a nice find. IIRC, it was M42 and allowed open aperture metering with Olympus lenses and stop down with others? During this time buyers were wanting open aperture metering (already present on Nikon, Canon, Konica, and Minolta) and showing up on different makers M42 mounts but only compatible with its own brand. Olympus might have had the OM series under development and needed a full frame SLR to fill the gap, but I'm only speculating. But the writing was on the wall- Pentax would have its K mount and Mamiya and Fuji would follow with their own mounts. Ricoh, Cosina, and Chinon would wisely adopt the K mount.

Not knocking stop down metering by any means- I learned SLR photography with my dad's Mamiya Sekor 1000 TL.

I look forward to seeing your images.

A shot from a few years back...

Xi'an, China Street Scene

Pentax MX, 40mm f/2.8 SMC-M "Pancake," Kodak T400CN

The rare FTL. What a nice find. IIRC, it was M42 and allowed open aperture metering with Olympus lenses and stop down with others?

That's correct, Mike. I believe the FTL was marketed as the first screw-mount camera with open-aperture metering, with Fuji and Mamiya coming out with their own variations soon after. There were Zuiko M42 lenses offered from 28mm to 200mm. The aperture ring is stepless, and the lens has its own locking DOF preview switch. Stopped-down metering is possible using other standard M42 lenses with manual diaphragm control, though other lenses with open-aperture modification (such as SMC Takumars) may not mount properly. Metering is still accurate on this camera using a zinc-air battery.

There's some speculation as to who actually designed the FTL. Mamiya at first seemed like the most likely candidate to me, but after removing the bottom cover, it seems mechanically different than other screw-mount camera designs I've seen. Some of the features and cosmetics are remarkably similar to the Canon FTb, though again it is not mechanically identical.

I took this for my friend in Florida to show her what she is missing. It should all be gone by June. Canon F1n, TMax 100. Orange filter