Category: Olympus

A few frames from…

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The Olympus OM-1N…

Unity MillUnity Mill
Olympus OM-1N, Zuiko Auto-zoom 35~70mm f/4 – 1/125s, f8½ – Fuji Neopan 400CN rated at ISO 200

I Believe In Sherlock graffiti‘I Believe In Sherlock’
Olympus OM-1N, Zuiko Auto-zoom 35~70mm f/4 – 1/125s, f16 – Fuji Neopan 400CN rated at ISO 200

E.S.C.Co. carved stone letteringE.S.C.Co.
Olympus OM-1N, Zuiko Auto-T 135mm f/3.5 – 1/250s, f8 – Fuji Neopan 400CN rated at ISO 200

Scans by Ag Photo Lab with minimal cropping and tweaking in Lightroom CC.

Look what I found…

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The past few years have seen me becoming a bit of a repository for old photographic equipment, a rest home for elderly cameras and lenses, out of date rolls of film, instruction books and odd accessories. ‘You’re into photography, can you use this?’ is something I’ve heard a lot and the hoarder in me just can’t turn potentially useful things away…

My wife is adamant that I’ve lost track of what I’ve got and if I’m honest she’s probably right as a couple of nights ago I was rummaging through a box, looking for something else and I found these…

Olympus OM lenses

Two Olympus OM lenses, a Zuiko Auto-T 135mm f/3.5 and a G.Zuiko Auto-W 28mm f/3.5 complete with genuine caps and a hood for the 28mm.

Needless to say they’ve gone straight into my bag along with my recent OM-1N find and will be getting used sooner rather than later!

18 years in a small town…

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18 years ago yesterday I picked up the keys to a small ‘two up, two down’ terraced house in a nondescript little town in the centre of England… that small house quickly became a home and my wife and I still live in it today…

The town is unremarkable in every way, no major historical events have ever taken place here, no huge stars of stage and screen have ever called it home, the town’s Wikipedia page seems to struggle to come up with much that relates to the town as it is today, the major industries that once provided employment for thousands are (in the main) long gone…

It’s still ‘home’ though, for all its flaws and shortcomings, for all its noise and dirt and litter.

Centaurea montana - perennial cornflowerCentaurea montana (perennial cornflower) – Olympus OM-1N, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Auto-S – 1/125s, f8½ – O.O.D. Fujicolor C200 rated at ISO 100

There are little pleasures to be had here though… the local pub is always welcoming, on a still night I can lie in bed and hear owls hooting in the small patch of woodland a few streets away and there are forgotten corners that provide endless photographic opportunities for folk like me that never leave the house without a camera…

The above shot is another from the first test roll through my charity shop find Olympus OM-1N. It was taken in the local churchyard on a beautiful summer afternoon and in spite of the church being smack in the centre of town I had the place to myself for a good hour!

Olympus OM-1N – A blast from the past!

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I first became acquainted with the OM series of cameras over 30 years ago when I inherited and OM-1N from my then girlfriend’s late father, it replaced an increasingly unreliable Zenit TTL and I absolutely loved using it!

In my late teens I fell out of love with photography (and the girlfriend) and parted company with the Olympus but always had a soft spot for its simple, rugged yet beautiful design.

Recently a friend tipped me off to an ‘old Olympus camera’ in a local charity shop and I was thrilled to discover this…

Olympus OM-1N + F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Auto-SOlympus OM-1N + F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Auto-S

What an absolute beauty! I immediately loaded up an out of date roll of Fujicolor C200 and happily snapped the afternoon away.

I’d almost forgotten how nicely the OM cameras handle… aperture, focus and shutter speed can all be adjusted without taking the camera from the eye and without sacrificing a comfortable grip on the camera/lens combination. The positioning of the shutter speed ring may be unconventional but it works fantastically well!

Olympus OM-1N - top view showing placement of controlsOlympus OM-1N – top view showing placement of controls

As you might expect there’s nothing stellar on that first test roll but this shot (un-cropped, un-tweaked and straight from the scanner) is the first, taken within seconds of me parting with my money… hopefully I’ll get a lot more use out of this blast from the past during what remains of the English summer!

Bath StreetBath Street – Olympus OM-1N, F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Auto-S – 1/125s, f11 – O.O.D. Fujicolor C200

Postscript: I’ve since managed to pick up (for an absolute song!) another Zuiko lens, the Auto-zoom 35~70mm f/4 and I can’t wait to try it out!