NEED HELP WITH OLYMPUS OM10

i am fairly new in photography and i bought an olympus om10 and i'd

like to know how the auto exposure works. what does the asa actually

do, because if i change it the light meter will go up or down, but

is the asa not the sort of film you put in the camera and does it do

something to the end product of the photo if the film is actually a

200 or 400 and i put it on 800 or 1600. please help.thanks

I can see why this would confuse you if you are new to photography. As I recall the OM10 is an aperture priority camera: you set the aperture you want and it chooses the appropriate shutter speed so that you get the correct exposure for the light. LEDs in the viewfinder tell you the shutter speed the camera 'thinks' is correct. If the light gets brighter or darker the shutter speed the camera selects will change accordingly and different viewfinder LEDs will be illuminated.

However there is another factor: the exposure depends not only on how bright the light is, but also on how sensitive your film is to light. Putting a more sensitive film in your camera is the same - so far as exposure is concerned - as being in brighter light. You need a shorter shutter speed for a given light level and aperture. You tell the camera what sensitivity of film you have loaded by setting the ISO/ASA dial. For example, an ISO 400 film is twice as sensitive (one stop) to light as a 200 ISO film, and, therefore, if you switch from a 200 film to a 400 one, the exposure meter will indicate that you need half the shutter speed.

It might be worth buying a manual adaptor so you can adjust the shutter speed independently of the aperture setting.

You can also adjust the shutter speed by moving the ASA setting, and "fooling" the camera. For example, if you wanted to over-expose a shot to get a high-key effect, you would select your aperture, then select a slower ASA than you have in the camera. (400ASA film - 100ASA selected etc.)

Is their any manual for that?

I am new also in photography but I am continue learning everything under the sun specially in some of the features that the new released camera has..

here take a look of some other camras that you can choose from.

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<a href="http://photography.qj.net/category/Olympus/cid/721">

Hit Me Here!</a>

Oliver, if I remember correctly the manual adapter comes with a folded up sheet of blurb, I dont remember if they are instruction but if you want a copy I can probably find mine, scan it and email it to you. If so contact me via sean@smcNOSPAMkinney.freeserve.co.uk, delete "NOSPAM" and use the subject "OM10 manual adapter"

Basically to use the adapter you plug it into the jack plug hole to the left of the lense mounting and set the camera to "manual adapter". To choose a given shutter speed you rotate the dial on the front of the adapter until the speed you want is at the top and thats it.

The following and the linked pages may be useful http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~rwesson/esif/om-sif/phototechnicalgroup/manual_adapter_1.htm

http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~rwesson/esif/om-sif/bodygroup/om10.htm

note the brown link at the bottomof the page is to a PDF manual for the OM10