Expanding my OM system

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Bob Loblaw

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After a computer crash made me re-evaluate what I want out of photography, I've decided to expand my Olympus OM system and focus on shooting film (while also using the OM lenses on my 400d)

I have an OM-10 with a 50 1.8, which i love, and I'm now thinking of buying the following:

OM-1 body,
28mm f/2.8
50mm f/1.4
either an 85mm f/2 or a 100mm f/2.8

I'm thinking of course of the Zuiko lenses, but what 3rd party lenses are worthwhile? Are there other lenses I should be considering? I'm new to manual lenses and the zuiko lenses are really the only ones I know about
 
Well you certainly won't go wrong with the OM-1. It's an excellent manual-only mechanical camera. As for lenses, I'm still using manual Nikons myself so I'm not sure which of the 3rd party lenses would also be compatible with your digital camera, but in my retail years a long time ago, Tamron and Tokina were highly regarded - as well as Zuiko lenses.
 
Bob Loblaw said:
After a computer crash made me re-evaluate what I want out of photography, I've decided to expand my Olympus OM system and focus on shooting film (while also using the OM lenses on my 400d)

I have an OM-10 with a 50 1.8, which i love, and I'm now thinking of buying the following:

OM-1 body,
28mm f/2.8
50mm f/1.4
either an 85mm f/2 or a 100mm f/2.8

I'm thinking of course of the Zuiko lenses, but what 3rd party lenses are worthwhile? Are there other lenses I should be considering? I'm new to manual lenses and the zuiko lenses are really the only ones I know about
Click to expand...


Well there are other makes of cameras to choose from esp as you have only one Olympus lens.
But it all depends on how much you can afford, how advanced you want to go into photography and you should only buy a lens that you need.......why not just get an Olympus 28mm and Olympus 75-150mm zoom for now, for your OM10.
 
***I hadn't thought of the 75-150 really, I'll go have a look at that***

Don't pay too much they are very cheap to buy....e.g I got offered an OM20 with 75-150 zoom for £15, it worked perfectly........I knew because I have an OM20, but the seller wouldn't drop to £12 so I let it go.
 
The OM1 and OM1n are very reliable and of exquisite build quality. I have an OM1 dating back to 1976 that still works perfectly. OM's to avoid include the OM2SP, but the 2n is very nice and reasonably reliable and the electronics are relatively simple compared with the 2SP. They can suffer from poor contacts under the ASA dial but this can usually be cleaned. If a 2SP dies it goes straight to camera heaven. Another thing to watch is corrosion of the pentaprism coating due to deterioration of the surrounding foam - service technicians often remove the foam as a matter of course. Gooey foam in the body - back recesses (i.e. forming the light trap between body and back) is not a good sign and might indicate that the foam in the pentaprism housing may have deteriorated too. The image in the viewfinder screen should be very bright (set new standards at the time) and if it looks dull or uneven it should arouse suspicion.

One thing to be aware of with the OM1 and OM1n is that the exposure meter was originally powered by a 1.35V mercury cell. These are no longer available but there do exist adapters that "convert" a silver oxide cell to behave like a mercury. Simply replacing the mercury cell with a silver oxide of the same physical size will not do because the voltage is too high. I believe, though, that zinc-air hearing aid cells will work (same voltage as mercury) although their life is limited once you've removed the tab that allows air into the cell.

I have quite a range of Zuiko lenses (primes and zooms). The only one that disappointed was a 35mm F2. Outstanding ones (IMO) include the 24mm F2.8, the 50mm F3.5 macro, 85mm F2, 200mm F4 and the 35-105 zoom. The 75-150 zoom is also excellent if having a rather restricted zoom range.

The OM10, 20 and 30 series were not built to the professional standards of the OM1,2, 3 and 4 series, but their build quality is still very good, with full metal diecast bodies.

Hope some of this helps. If you get get a really nice OM, you'll love it!


johngie
 
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