Our friend Yuko (the same friend from whose balcony I took this shot) dropped off this classic Olympus OM-1 kit which, has been used by her family since new. It isn't in mint condition by any means but the most important two elements work: the shutter speed appears to work reasonably accurately and the aperture blades stop down properly on both lenses. There are a number of faults: The light metering is not working, wrong kind of battery jammed in the battery compartment (I can use either a hand held meter or my casio); Shutter button jams down after pressing sometimes, but I've figured out how to un-jam it quickly when it happens; Mirror is damaged at the bottom, but I can still compose; on the 50mm lens the depth of field preview is jammed on; on the 135mm lens there is a chip in the front element and it doesn't lock in properly on the mount, but I can hold it in place. I've not tested the flash yet.
If you're unfamiliar with the Olympus OM-1, it is regarded as one of the classic manual 35mm SLRs. Here are it's features:- Large bright 100% view finder; small compact size for 35mm SLR; easy to use mirror lock up and self timer; built-in centre weight light meter; fully mechanical workings of shutter, aperture, winder, so therefore works in colder conditions than electronic cameras.
I'm going to load a roll of film in and give it a test, but I'm still trying to decide what subjects to choose. Anybody got any suggestions? Now that the kindergarten work is back on after summer holidays, I haven't got as much free time, so it might take me a while before I finish testing this camera.