The Olympus OM-2n is a full interchangeable professional SLR system.
Olympus OM-2n with Zuiko (Olympus) 28/3.5 lens:
Cost: You can get a camera and several lenses for under $200, leaving you with plenty of dough for film. Remember 35mm is "full frame" so a 28mm lens is 28mm, not 40mm.
Camera: $60-$100. The slightly older OM-2 may go for $10-$20 less.
Lenses:
50/1.8 = $35
50/1.4 = $60
35/2.8 = $40
28/3.5 = $35
28/2.8 = $45
24/2.8 =$140
80-200 f/4 zoom = $50
3rd party lenses, such as Tokina, Sigma, or Vivitar can be decent performers for 25%-50% of the Olympus price. I'd definitely consider them for telephoto zoom lenses as it is easier to design a telephoto lens than a wide angle. Manufacturer brand lenses tend to perform better at wider angles and wider apertures. So a 24mm Olympus will likely be better than a 24mm 3rd party lens. With the 3rd party lens, straight lines may have curvature to them. The difference between an Olympus 50/1.4 and a 3rd party 50/1.4 is at wider apertures. At f/1.4 the 3rd party lens may not be as sharp: possibly less sharp in the center, but mostly likely less sharp in the corners. This is fine for portraits since that will be out of focus anyway. At f/8 or f/16 the lenses will perform the same.
Usability: The camera has two basic settings, Auto and Manual. Auto is aperture priority - you pick the aperture and the camera will pick the shutter speed. This allows for fast shooting in normal light settings. There is also a dial for exposure compensation to adjust for when lighting may fool the light meter. The manual mode allows full control of camera settings. There is a meter that will tell you if you are underexposing or overexposing the image.
A big advantage over other cameras is that the OM-2 and OM-2n take the 1.5 V SR-44 silver oxide battery which is commonly available. Many other cameras of that era may take a 1.35V mercury battery which is no longer available and substitute batteries (Wein Cell) are annoying. Remember to use the SR-44 instead of the LR-44 alkaline battery. They are the same size and some will tell you they are the same, but as the LR-44 depletes, the voltage drops. As the voltage drops, the meter will underexpose shots. The SR-44 will just die.
Dead batteries? With electronically controlled shutters (as the OM-2n is), a dead battery may mean a dead camera. This is not quite the case with the OM-2n as it has mechanical ability to fire at 1/60 shutter speed.
Size: The Olympus OM series was modeled after the Leica M series. Leica Ms still smaller because are they are rangefinders and don't have a mirror box, but the Olympus is notable smaller than competing SLRs.
Leica M with 50/2 Summicron versus Olympus OM-2n with 28/3.5 lens:
Other:
- Zuiko is Olympus's brand of lenses and is very highly regarded.
- The OM-1 are purely mechanical cameras with a build in meter, meaning the camera operations don't required a battery. The battery is needed for the meter and this is the dreaded 1.35V mercury battery for the meter.
- The difference between the OM-2 and the OM-2n is small and has features you'd probably never use. The OM-2n are newer so they may be in better shape with 27 year old electronic instead of 33 year old electronics.
- The OM-10 and OM-20 were consumer grade SLR cameras. They have aperture priority only (no manual mode). Since the OM-2 is so inexpensive today, there really isn't a reason to get the OM-10. Remember, the OM-2 was designed for professionals.
I have the OM-10 That is what I learned on. I broke it out after the Holga workshop but I have not taken any yet. I have a bunch of expired film.
ReplyDeleteFilm stays pretty good after its expiration date. I just shot a roll of Kodachrome that someone gave me that expired in 2004. The results were fine.
ReplyDeleteThe OM-10 will run rings around the Holga in terms of performance. The Holga can give some artsy results under certain circumstances, but its limited
i prefere my OM1 (with a zuiko 1.8/50)
ReplyDelete- even 20g less weight than a M4/Cron50 (680 vs 700gr):
- OM1 has a great lightmeter
- nobody never ever complained about 'poor' image quality at OM side ;o)
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I'm a retired wedding photographer and replaced a Hassalblad (too noisy) with a pair of OM's (OM1n & OM2n) used them for over 20yrs - still got them and still use them - brilliant cameras.
ReplyDeleteHello.
ReplyDeleteSweden here. Patric is my name.
I recently bought at a permanent secondhand store or fleamarket two black olympus om-2n with two 50 mm 1.8 lenses. And Tokina 70-210 mm f:4-5.6, a expert MC 400 mm f:5.6, a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 mm f:3.5, a E.Zuiko auto-T 100 mm 2.8, and Vivitar extensiontubes automatic 12, 20 and 36 mm.
A good price too, of 500 kronor swedish, about 75 dollars Us.
I forgot.Big camera bag, filter for each lens and them Rubber things protecting the sun comming in from the side into the lens. And last, also the OM winder 2.
I became electrified when I saw all of that spreaded on the shelf. I have benen shooting like crazy past days.
I got so carried away I bought an enlarger Fujimoto G70 on Tradera.se for around 200 dollars Us. So. Darkroom is going to be in a closet in near future.
A week before this I found a Vivitar 70-210mm f:4.5-5.6 MC Macro Focusing Zoom lens.
Cost= around 15 Us dollars. I bought this since I allready had an Oly Om-1 which I found at a garage sale last year with winder, bag and lense 50 mm 1.8.
So now I have three 50 mm f:1.8 lenses and three Oly cameras. But no 50 mm f:1.4, which I heard alot of good words about.
It's strange. I have since my start ( first self bought camera) in the world of cameras allways owned Olympus from beginning of the 90:s.
Many are writing in forums of Olympus large viewfinder. I have nothing to compare with. So I have no clue what the difference is?
I am not enlightened on this matter. Am i spioled? Or should I say, are my eyes spioled?
Nice to have been in here. Good bye. Maybe I here from someone in the future.
" keep the finger on the trigger "
© Patric "Vurre" Vursen
Just to clarify one of your statements: The OM-10 has an optional manual adapter to give a choice of Aperture Priority or Manual modes. The OM-20 has Aperture Priority and Manual modes as standard with the shutter speed controlled by the same ring around the lens mount as the OM-1 and OM-2. Neither, however, feature any viewfinder indication of +/- exposure settings though they give a suggested film speed for any given aperture.
ReplyDeleteHi there,
ReplyDeletebrilliant article, thumbs up to you.
Just my two cents, I hope that's ok.
I am a professional photographer, I started as an analog one in '96, then I moved to digital but never really liked it. So I went back to analog a few years ago and couldn't be happier.
I also happen to be a big Olympus/Zuiko fan; I currently have an OM-1, OM-1n, OM-2m, OM-4, OM-ti. As for lenses, I only pair Zuiko OM lenses to Olympus bodies as, being such glasses of unparalleled quality, to me there really is no point on using an OM-... without its native lens.
I have a 24mm 1:2.8, 35mm 1:2.8, 50mm 1:1.4, (2x) 50mm 1:1.8, 100mm 1:2.8, 135mm 1:3.5, and the almighty 180mm 1:2.8.
IMHO, the Olympus OM series is one of the greatest SLRs ever made. They're small, light, perfect in so many ways. On top of that, both the OM-3 and OM-4 have one of the most incredible multi-spot meters ever (it'll put on shame any other camera' posture system in comparison.)
Maybe one day I'll buy an OM-3, but being very rare they are also ridiculously expensive. I use each camera for work - I'm not a collector - so I have to carefully justifying any buying.
Those cameras are built to ergonomically fit into one hand, not to be paraded around like many other cameras of that time. I won't name and shame, no worries :)
Finally, I do a lot of street photography, and I pretty much always shoot pre-calculating the hiperfocal. That means, I go waist-level. Hence, I don't point by eye. Which means, I can leave the mirror up, and won't be preoccupied with mirror shaking. And being OM cameras almost as light and small as Leica M bodies, well I guess you got the point.
Talking specifically about the OM-2 model, my only remark would be that there is no AEL function (something that was corrected later on on the -3, -4 series.) But that's really not much of an issue anyway, as if you're using the AE function, you van get the reading and switch to M mode. You might lose some precious seconds though.
I'll stop here but I could go on and on. They are excellent cameras, a joy to work with.