Best-built SLR with great metering?

[Les Sarile]

Les' spidey sense gets triggered when the term "LX" hits the internet!

With great collection comes great responsibility to share facts . . .

 

[Les Sarile]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Porta 400 has a very real 20 stop range without being pulled.
Truly amazing film with amazing resolution for what is able to do. View attachment 285274 (c) Tim Parkin

I grossly underestimated Portra's latitude specially Ektar!
Yeah, these films resolving abilities are just amazing too!

 

[Digger Odell]

How about the Olympus OM4 Ti ? Great metering, great lenses, durable, weather sealed (sorta), good viewfinder, about as compact as you can get. No auto focus though.

 

[Moose22]

I grossly underestimated Portra's latitude specially Ektar!
Yeah, these films resolving abilities are just amazing too!

You're not kidding. I got scans from that roll I shot over the weekend. Bracketed a shot, and all three work just fine.

Also, on the original topic, I took some of a tough mixed lighting scene with my F100, and man that metered nice. Perfectly, in fact. For this topic, that was a well spent $300.

 

[Bill Burk]

I just replaced the seals in an OM-3 that I got because I like manual shutter, good build quality, good lenses and light weight. Meter be damned but the spot is there if I forget my meter.

Spotmatic F would be nice except the meter keeps turning off in dim light so it’s hard to know at a glance if exposure is right or it suddenly got dark out.

It’s going to take time to wean me off the ESII which just keeps working. Except the Pentax average is not an excellent metering scheme. Hated it when bright stage light aimed at audience shined at me and threw off exposure wildly.

 

[Bill Burk]

How about the Olympus OM4 Ti ? Great metering, great lenses, durable, weather sealed (sorta), good viewfinder, about as compact as you can get. No auto focus though.

I have two OM-4 original circuit and do not like the electronic issues. Maybe the Ti versions are better but I decided to get OM-3. I don’t like my OM-3’s electronic issue: meter doesn’t turn on until you almost practically take a picture. And the only way to activate the meter is with a press on the shutter release. It also has an old battery circuit so I may not have any battery when I first pick it up. I am getting in the habit of pre-setting the f/stop and shutter speed by guess and then just plain taking a picture. Maybe after I can check if the exposure was right, adjust and maybe take another picture if I was off the first guess.

 

[Bill Burk]

There is a saying: the least exposure, if it is enough, is usually the best. Found this in the free wild, Kodak research papers. Granularity increases with exposure, the minimum is best. A is the minimum, B is 1 1/2 times and so on. I think E was 10x exposure.

 

[Helge]

There is a saying: the least exposure, if it is enough, is usually the best. Found this in the free wild, Kodak research papers. Granularity increases with exposure, the minimum is best. A is the minimum, B is 1 1/2 times and so on. I think E was 10x exposure.

View attachment 285341

Do you have a source please ?

 

[Philippe-Georges]

These were my workhorses before Digital stroke, in 2006...

(I made that picture in 2010 with a K20D to sell them, how stupid a man can be...)

 

[Digger Odell]

I have two OM-4 original circuit and do not like the electronic issues. Maybe the Ti versions are better but I decided to get OM-3. I don’t like my OM-3’s electronic issue: meter doesn’t turn on until you almost practically take a picture. And the only way to activate the meter is with a press on the shutter release. It also has an old battery circuit so I may not have any battery when I first pick it up. I am getting in the habit of pre-setting the f/stop and shutter speed by guess and then just plain taking a picture. Maybe after I can check if the exposure was right, adjust and maybe take another picture if I was off the first guess.

I'm pretty sure the only OM series that had a battery issue was on Some of plain OM 4 (I think you can tell by the color of the led's in the viewfinder green= bad, red= good? my memory isn't sure on this). It was fixed with the OM 4T and OM 4 Ti series.

 

[Huss]

I'm pretty sure the only OM series that had a battery issue was on Some of plain OM 4 (I think you can tell by the color of the led's in the viewfinder green= bad, red= good? my memory isn't sure on this). It was fixed with the OM 4T and OM 4 Ti series.

The OM2SP had dodgy electronics. Really nicely styled/designed camera though.

 

[Les Sarile]

I'm pretty sure the only OM series that had a battery issue was on Some of plain OM 4 (I think you can tell by the color of the led's in the viewfinder green= bad, red= good? my memory isn't sure on this). It was fixed with the OM 4T and OM 4 Ti series.

On the OM3 & 4, move the switch to check battery and if it automatically stops beeping after 30 seconds you have the updated circuit board. It is my understanding that back when Olympus offered to update the camera's for free.

Both my OM3 & 4T have this updated board.

OM1234 by Les DMess, on Flickr

 

[Bill Burk]

OM-3 is push button battery check but first generation circuit board, like OM-4, has battery drain. Mine beeps as long as you hold it. I have found it dead after a few weeks.

It just doesn’t cost you the shot.

 

[Bill Burk]

Do you have a source please ?

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=tcAiAQAAIAAJ&rdid=book-tcAiAQAAIAAJ&rdot=1

No. 145 Graininess in Motion Picture Negatives and Positives. A.C. Hardy and L.A. Jones 1922

 

[CMoore]

OM-3 is push button battery check but first generation circuit board, like OM-4, has battery drain. Mine beeps as long as you hold it. I have found it dead after a few weeks.

It just doesn’t cost you the shot.

I have an OM-3.....not the Ti version...but i have not really used it.
I bought it on Ebay for 250 dollars.
I had always herad how great these were, and i thought it would be nice to have a 35mm SLR with a spot meter.

It was well used and "brassed" but no sings of dents or being dropped.
I sent it to Zacks (https://zackscamerarepair.com)
He said it was fine. It needed a basic CLA, but everything seemed good to him.
He briefly discussed the "battery thing" with me, but that was 2 years ago. I cannot even remember what he said.
Does the meter stay on for a long period each time, after you use it.?

What type of Electronic / Battery issues have you had.?
Thank You

 

[Bill Burk]

No it doesn’t stay on a long time, a minute and ten seconds.

I have had the camera battery be dead when I picked it up. A symptom of battery leak that I am very familiar with because I have two OM-4 original circuit cameras.

I got the OM-3 suspecting and ready to accept early circuit, because I wanted the higher build quality.

Can’t turn off the beep. Hard to turn the meter on. I miss the days of mercury cells which lasted years. You could pick up a Spotmatic and just use it no matter how long it had been sitting there. Even an OM-1 you didn’t even have to turn off the switch because current flow was so low. But have to agree alkalines are better for the environment.

I like the OM-3 now, just was hoping not to have to live with quirks.

That’s what makes an M2 so good. No quirks.

 

[Paul Howell]

I had always herad how great these were, and i thought it would be nice to have a 35mm SLR with a spot meter.

Miranda EE has spot and bottom weighted average.

 

[Huss]

I had always herad how great these were, and i thought it would be nice to have a 35mm SLR with a spot meter.

Miranda EE has spot and bottom weighted average.

Leica R series - R4 and later I think - offer spot and avg metering. (The R-E, R5, R7, R7, R8, R9 definitely do)

 

[Paul Howell]

Miranda EEs were early 70s, ACI the parent company bellied up in 77 or so, the Miranda EE came out in 71, shutter speed preferred auto exposure, all mechanical, but many are dead, the meter sensor is on the mirror and the slapping of the mirrors caused the wires to break or might have even damaged the sensor. Limited range of lens, but the ones I have are all pretty good. I have one working body.

 

[Digger Odell]

Just to be clear, ALL of the battery drain problems were fixed with the OM 4-T and OM 4-TI models. These also have excellent spot metering and the prices are not stratospheric, yet.

 

[CMoore]

Just to be clear, ALL of the battery drain problems were fixed with the OM 4-T and OM 4-TI models. These also have excellent spot metering and the prices are not stratospheric, yet.

I have the OM-3........ no other nomenclature.
I have heard a few different things regarding "Battery Drain".
What exactly is the problem with the OM-3.?
What happens.?
thank you

 

[Sirius Glass]

Over decades I used the Minolta slrs and their light meters were always accurate. Since 2003 I have been using the Nikon AF cameras and again the light meters have always been accurate.

 

[Paul Howell]

Over the years I have used a Retina III C, Spotmatic, Konica T, T3, T4, Nikon F, F2, F3P, FG, never an issue metering, then I bought a Sigma SA7 and 9 (same meter in both) Pentax FS, PZ, Minolta, 7000, 9000, 600, 800, 7 and 9, again metering is very usable, not to mention, Miranda, Kowa, Topcon, and very large box of point and shoots and a few fixed lens rangefinders. Miranda EEs are accurate but are not reliable. Last few days I've been comparing average metering with matrix metering with Minolta film and Sony A bodies. Seems to me that both modes are within a 1/2 stop. Might make a difference with slide film, other wise, black and white or color negative film, not to worry.

 

[Digger Odell]

I have the OM-3........ no other nomenclature.
I have heard a few different things regarding "Battery Drain".
What exactly is the problem with the OM-3.?
What happens.?
thank you

The issue with battery drain, is that the light meter is never fully shuts off, this drains the little silver oxide batteries (2 pcs.) in a few months. Therefore, when you pick up your camera after a period of unuse it is likely to have dead batteries. The solution is to remove the batteries after every use, or buy a bunch of replacements that are inexpensive from somewhere like Esslinger's jewelry supply in the twin cities, and replace as needed. These can be had for about .75 cents american. This is what I do, and carry some spares in the camera case. This battery problem is kind of an internet legend that is overblown in my opinion. You can pick up a OM-4 that has this "problem" Cheap. You can pick up an OM-4TI that DOESN'T have this problem for still a good deal.

The OM-3 is fully functional without batteries except for the light meter. It is highly sought after for this reason. You can still use a stand alone light meter like your phone with an app. (I like LightMeter by David Quiles) and take pics at 1/2000 sec shutter speed. From what I know of the battery problem, It only affected the earliest OM-4 cameras. olympus would fix this for free back in the day.

 

[CMoore]

The issue with battery drain, is that the light meter is never fully shuts off, this drains the little silver oxide batteries (2 pcs.) in a few months. Therefore, when you pick up your camera after a period of unuse it is likely to have dead batteries. The solution is to remove the batteries after every use, or buy a bunch of replacements that are inexpensive from somewhere like Esslinger's jewelry supply in the twin cities, and replace as needed. These can be had for about .75 cents american. This is what I do, and carry some spares in the camera case. This battery problem is kind of an internet legend that is overblown in my opinion. You can pick up a OM-4 that has this "problem" Cheap. You can pick up an OM-4TI that DOESN'T have this problem for still a good deal.

The OM-3 is fully functional without batteries except for the light meter. It is highly sought after for this reason. You can still use a stand alone light meter like your phone with an app. (I like LightMeter by David Quiles) and take pics at 1/2000 sec shutter speed. From what I know of the battery problem, It only affected the earliest OM-4 cameras. olympus would fix this for free back in the day.

I See..... Thank You