Apple blossoms
OM707/OM77-AF
Zuiko 75-210mm Autofocus Zoom
Fuji Acros at box speed
Kodak TMAX Dev 1:9 10 minutes at 70F.
Negative Scan - Epson V500
Development details on FilmDev
This camera, for all its failings, takes very good photos. I think it failed for two reasons, it was poorly marketed and it's body was poorly designed. By far, its biggest advantage was it's optics. The 70-210mm zoom used here is nice and sharp as were most Zuiko OM lenses. (I have a hard time determining if my Canon FD's or Zuiko OM's are my favorite lenses. I love my Nikon's too but at the time I was growing up, I couldn't afford Nikon's so the Canon's and Oly's have a special place in my case). For all the criticism of it's auto-focus capabilities, it still is fairly accurate if you have decent contrast. It also has a nice power grip with pop-up flash that works great. It's biggest disadvantage was the chintzy (and I mean chintzy!) plastic body. If you drop this camera, it's finished. I think if you ever had owned an OM-1 and picked up this camera, you would not have bought it. It looks cheap and feels cheap. I didn't own one until recently when I picked it up in Goodwill for $10. It was in near perfect condition and it was a camera that represented a defining moment in the history of Olympus OM Cameras. It was the one and only OM Autofocus camera. Add the fact that 1980's autofocus lenses were so heavy, combined with the light plastic body, makes the whole camera off-balance. It also has the worst battery door I have ever seen. How any engineer could have designed this, is beyond me.
Olympus OM's always targeted higher-end photo-enthusiasts. If they had a better ear to the market place regarding consumer's desires for fast and easy photography, recognized the fact that consumers could be up-sold, like Minolta did and kept the single series OM-x body engineering and design, it could have been a winner. Unfortunately, cheap molded plastic won out and Minolta took the AF market from everyone.
Comments and faves
joso111 (13 months ago | reply)
photography 101,
#1 why I like and use this camera model.
#2 what I like to photograph.
#3 sharing my passion with you.
Nice job with the direct sunlight here, did you hand meter this?
I have a Pentax ME Super and I am not sure if it is a weak battery, or the camera metering is off, but the numbers that show up in the view finder for correct exposure, don't match my other cameras or the hand held Minolta light meter.
No, I have not run any film through it yet...
costigaj (13 months ago | reply)
John, thanks. No, this was done with the in-camera meter. Olympus' off the film metering system does a nice job most of the time. However, I did use the AE lock block button since it was noon-day sun on white and metered off the leaves.
I have a Pentax ME Super too that had an exposure problem as well. It's metering was all over the place. To me it behaved as if there was some sort of electrical short or the photocell was defective. I forget exactly what the issue was but I think I worked the exposure compensation and/or exposure mode dials and it cleared it up. I also have a Konica FT-1 that shows all kinds of goofy displays in the viewfinder but the stutter still exposes correctly. I found out what that issue was from a Konica users group. It's a fairly simple contact cleaning job but it takes 3-4 hours, which I don't ever seem to have these days. So it sits.
costigaj (13 months ago | reply)
John regarding ME Super, see this thread and check what the guy says, third post from the bottom. I didn't use alcohol but I did work the dials back and forth and it seemed to correct the issue.
www.flickr.com/groups/891454@N24/discuss/7215 7621969832285/
ichigonotsukikage added this photo to his favorites. (11 months ago)