Climb Mount Olympus
January 18th, 2008 @ 16:43 by NormMonkey
My collection of Olympus photography gear has just grown:
Olympus OM-2 built in August 1976
This picture
… is just intended to be a quickie until I can take some decent product shots to fit my black background. I’m not happy with this as it looks over-processed to me. I went from a slightly overexposed image with not enough contrast, to one with too much.
This was taken on a sheet of white construction paper with another sheet standing off to the left for light bounce. Off to the right on a little tripod is my T32 flash on an optical trigger, and I hand-held my FL36 flash above and to the left.
The eBay auction
… I won not only includes this OM-2 and its standard[1] 50mm f/1.8, but also an Olympus Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 and Tokina 35-105mm f/3.5, plus a Vivitar 2x converter. Each lens came with a skylight or UV filter on it, proving its previous owner had a clue. There’s a leather Oly camera case and another case holding all the gear, and some other stuff.
Also a T32 flash (which I bought a $25 optical slave trigger for, used in the above picture, rawk). Also a 1-14 focusing screen, remote shutter release, sync cable for the flash, Shoe-3 and TTL connector 3 with cable, off-camera flash bracket with a gizmo for pan/tilt.
Basically the guy sold his entire photography kit. It all appears to be in really good shape, wear is consistent with age and consistent with the seller’s story of using the camera for a bit and then storing it for many years.
I still need to send it to John Hermanson’s Camtech for an overhaul. Notwithstanding that it’s over 30 years old and needs a clean, lube and adjust, the foam they used to line the prism, seal the film door and dampen the mirror eventually turns into a tar-like sludge. This sludge will eventually damage the coating on the prism, so it needs to be replaced. Mr. Hermanson has a stellar reputation for these OM cameras; I’m confident he’s the guy to restore this camera to the quality piece of engineering it was back in the late 70’s.
[1] The 50mm f/1.8 lens is the one that these cameras came with (standard package) and is also a standard lens (focal length, as in wide, standard, telephoto). Just for those of us who love phrases with double meanings.
