The Olympus OM2n..

KerrKid · Mar 27, 2023

I'm late to the OM party but just got an Olympus OM2n which I've mentioned in another thread. I kept hearing how small and wonderful these cameras are and had to find out for myself. The camera is small but not uncomfortably so and is nice to hold with very good build quality.

For comparison, my Minolta X-570 is the same length but a bit thicker and taller. It is also lighter. The X-570 fits me better ergonomically - especially the shutter release position - but doesn't have the carved-from-billet feel of the OM2n. There's just something more appealing about metal than plastic no matter how competent a plastic camera is. The OM2n is a jewel and the X-570 is a tool.

Now I just need to get a couple of primes that aren't macros like the lenses that came with the camera.

FriedLouisStudio · Mar 28, 2023

OM primes... There are some classic OM lenses currently available at UsedPhotoPro, and their "Good" ratings are conservative. Everything "Good" I've gotten from them is closer to Excellent.

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Shop our huge selection of Used Manual Focus Lenses and SLR Lenses at great prices! We offer Free Shipping on qualified orders on popular brands Canon, Nikon, and more. Buy used Wide angle, Standard lenses, or SLR lenses from UsedPhotoPro today.

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The 28/2.8 is an outstanding wide lens, I used a borrowed one for years. (Now I have the 24/2.8 instead, which is also great... though I find its angle of view a little too wide at times. The 28mm included plenty of image, but it didn't scream WIDE ANGLE LENS at you.) 28mm shots:

UsedPhotoPro don't have one listed now, but my favorite OM lens is definitely the 100/2.8. Keep an eye out for one of those! It gives results very similar to the famous Nikkor 105/2.5 (and I've been using one of those since the sixties!), but it's remarkably small/light. I've taken loads of great shots with it. 100mm shots:

I love my built-to-survive-an-apocalypse non-AI Nikon gear, but the OM system is so much lighter/smaller, and such a pleasure to use. The lenses are great, and the OM-2's metering system is superb: I never bother taking it off Auto, it always yields entire rolls of perfect negatives. (I also shoot with a Pen F and Stylus Epic - Olympus made GREAT cameras!)

Dali · Mar 28, 2023

Never found the OM cameras that good. Little gems from the engineering standpoint maybe, but vert average reliability for the user.

Lenses I used had nothing outstanding (except the 2.8/100mm), on par with other major manufacturers (Canon, Minolta, Pentax...), no more.

Huss · Mar 28, 2023

Dali said:
Never found the OM cameras that good. Little gems from the engineering standpoint maybe, but vert average reliability for the user.

Did your OM camera fail?

KerrKid · Mar 28, 2023

FriedLouisStudio said:
OM primes... There are some classic OM lenses currently available at UsedPhotoPro, and their "Good" ratings are conservative. Everything "Good" I've gotten from them is closer to Excellent.

Used Manual Focus Lenses SLR Lenses for Sale | UsedPhotoPro

Shop our huge selection of Used Manual Focus Lenses and SLR Lenses at great prices! We offer Free Shipping on qualified orders on popular brands Canon, Nikon, and more. Buy used Wide angle, Standard lenses, or SLR lenses from UsedPhotoPro today.

usedphotopro.com

The 28/2.8 is an outstanding wide lens, I used a borrowed one for years. (Now I have the 24/2.8 instead, which is also great... though I find its angle of view a little too wide at times. The 28mm included plenty of image, but it didn't scream WIDE ANGLE LENS at you.) 28mm shots:

View attachment 333961 View attachment 333968

UsedPhotoPro don't have one listed now, but my favorite OM lens is definitely the 100/2.8. Keep an eye out for one of those! It gives results very similar to the famous Nikkor 105/2.5 (and I've been using one of those since the sixties!), but it's remarkably small/light. I've taken loads of great shots with it. 100mm shots:

View attachment 333962 View attachment 333963

I love my built-to-survive-an-apocalypse non-AI Nikon gear, but the OM system is so much lighter/smaller, and such a pleasure to use. The lenses are great, and the OM-2's metering system is superb: I never bother taking it off Auto, it always yields entire rolls of perfect negatives. (I also shoot with a Pen F and Stylus Epic - Olympus made GREAT cameras!)

Thanks for the tips! That 100mm would be especially nice. I would like a 35mm f2 or f2.8 lens, too. Actually, I'd like the 40mm f2 the most but I can't bring myself to pay the price.

I have the Nikkormat FTn and 24mm f2.8 lens to shoot the apocalypse and any survivors.

Dali · Mar 28, 2023

Huss said:
Did your OM camera fail?

OM2sp: The bargraph in the viewfinder failed.

OM1n: Synchro flash never reach 1/60 sec. Had to expose @ 1/30 to get the whole frame exposed.

OM1: Mirror mechanism changed and jumping meter. Not to mention a weird light leak.

And I could continue with OM10 multiple failures but it is not the subject (double digit OM were of lower quality anyway).

Hassasin · Mar 28, 2023

Dali said:
Never found the OM cameras that good. Little gems from the engineering standpoint maybe, but vert average reliability for the user.

Lenses I used had nothing outstanding (except the 2.8/100mm), on par with other major manufacturers (Canon, Minolta, Pentax...), no more.

All the while mentioning lenses all of excellent quality, somehow missed Nikon, but could as well mention Zeiss for all practical comparisons.

Huss · Mar 28, 2023

Dali said:
OM2sp: The bargraph in the viewfinder failed.

OM1n: Synchro flash never reach 1/60 sec. Had to expose @ 1/30 to get the whole frame exposed.

OM1: Mirror mechanism changed and jumping meter. Not to mention a weird light leak.

And I could continue with OM10 multiple failures but it is not the subject (double digit OM were of lower quality anyway).

Were these new cameras? Or bought used? I heard that the OM2S (sp) had issues.

Dali · Mar 28, 2023

Both. The OM1 has already been repaired twice by John Hermanson.

FriedLouisStudio · Mar 28, 2023

KerrKid, I also heartily recommend the 35/2 OM lens. I got mine back in 1983 when all I had was an OM-G/OM20. I've always preferred the 35/2 as my normal lens, I never cared for the look of a 50. These days, I use the 35/2 about as frequently as my 100/2.8.

Recent shots taken around Beacon, NY with the 35/2 on my OM-2n (Tri-X, D-76, 1200dpi scan):

Oh, and my other main SLR these days is a Nikkormat FTn - often with the Nikkor 35/2 my parents bought in the mid-70s. It was using that lens on a Nikon F2 back around 1979 that primed me for getting the Zuiko 35/2 once I had an OM body!

Dali · Mar 28, 2023

Hassasin said:
All the while mentioning lenses all of excellent quality, somehow missed Nikon, but could as well mention Zeiss for all practical comparisons.

By excellent quality, you mean manufacturing quality or optical quality?

Hassasin · Mar 28, 2023

OM2s did have problems, so did OM4 (until they fixed it), it was all about battery drain issues, solved later in OM4 and not an issue on OM4T

Hassasin · Mar 28, 2023

Dali said:
By excellent quality, you mean manufacturing quality or optical quality?

Both.

Huss · Mar 28, 2023

Hassasin said:
OM2s did have problems, so did OM4 (until they fixed it), it was all about battery drain issues, solved later in OM4 and not an issue on OM4T

Well, good thing this thread is about the OM2n then! I loved the one I handled, bummer the meter was off.

Dali · Mar 28, 2023

Hassasin said:
Both.

I agree for the mechanical quality (especially zoom lenses) but for optical results, they were no better than Pentax or Nikkor lenses I own and somewhat inferior to Zeiss Sonnar. Maybe I am a rangefinder guy...

Hassasin · Mar 28, 2023

Huss said:
Well, good thing this thread is about the OM2n then! I loved the one I handled, bummer the meter was off.

Those drain issues were fairly easily countered by simply storing camera with shutter set on B (speaking from memory so that might be off somewhat). But overall my only gripe with OM, and a minor one at that, is film advance not feeling as solid as most other majors from that era. But hard to beat compactness.

ANd to top it all off, Zuiko made a lens that is hard to find at below a grand, but top optics unmatched. I sadly tried to bargain down an offer from 800 and surely missed that purchase before I could take a breath.

It was zoom 35-80 2.8

Hassasin · Mar 28, 2023

Dali said:
I agree for the mechanical quality (especially zoom lenses) but for optical results, they were no better than Pentax or Nikkor lenses I own and somewhat inferior to Zeiss Sonnar. Maybe I am a rangefinder guy...

All I was saying is all the major brands made excellent quality optics. I won't go into Zeiss vs world comparison.

Dali · Mar 28, 2023

I don't compare Zeiss to other brands as I don't have any universal knowledge. From all the lenses I owned, the wartime Sonnar 1.5/50mm (Contax mount) was the best by far. Is it due to the camera (Contax IIa) not being an SLR? Maybe... I don't know exactly but this is my experience.

KerrKid · Mar 29, 2023

It’s a shame I don’t have a 35mm f2 for Saturday. Big vintage motorcycle event in Fredericksburg this weekend.

I’d like to take the OM2n but that 50mm macro would be limiting and forget about the zoom. Heck, I may try the 50 anyway.

I’ll probably take my XA2 as well. Even though everyone knows how crappy the XA2 is.))

Anon Ymous · Mar 29, 2023

Hassasin said:
Those drain issues were fairly easily countered by simply storing camera with shutter set on B

Nope, still drains batteries. Tried it, no difference.

beemermark · Mar 29, 2023

Way back in the very early 80's I worked at a synthetic natural gas plant ( we made synthetic natural gas because all the political pundits said NG would be deplete by 1990). I was a big camera buff and the chemistry department came to me wanting to do pictures of before and after resin through a microscope. People don't realize it but back then to determine the exposure from a flash (necessary with the high magnification in a microscope) you had to do a who lot of math and trial and error with the available flash technology. But Olympus had just came out with off the film flash automatic exposure. The company bought me all the equipment and I made thousands of perfectly exposed pictures of resin at about 400x magnification. I could never have done it with my Nikon equipment.

Hassasin · Mar 29, 2023

Anon Ymous said:
Nope, still drains batteries. Tried it, no difference.

There is trick that everybody said it worked, but I don't own any of these bodies, so can't go beyond that. Looks like there may have been different cases of what actually caused battery drain, if something worked on some bodies and did not on others.

MattKing · Mar 29, 2023

Unfortunately, the "B" position had/has no effect on battery drain - the metering circuits on those cameras are designed to always be available for instant use.
But it isn't as bad as some seem to think - you just learn to carry an extra pair of the SR44 batteries.
My well used OM-2s - bought new way back when, with the box end from the last roll of Kodachrome I shot in it, just before processing ended in 2010..

Anon Ymous · Mar 29, 2023

Hassasin said:
There is trick that everybody said it worked, but I don't own any of these bodies, so can't go beyond that. Looks like there may have been different cases of what actually caused battery drain, if something worked on some bodies and did not on others.

I can't check at the moment, but I think selecting B disabled the button that illuminated the viewfinder. It could, if left pressed in a bag, drain battery pretty quickly. But this didn't help the drain problems this camera had

KerrKid · Mar 29, 2023

beemermark said:
Way back in the very early 80's I worked at a synthetic natural gas plant ( we made synthetic natural gas because all the political pundits said NG would be deplete by 1990). I was a big camera buff and the chemistry department came to me wanting to do pictures of before and after resin through a microscope. People don't realize it but back then to determine the exposure from a flash (necessary with the high magnification in a microscope) you had to do a who lot of math and trial and error with the available flash technology. But Olympus had just came out with off the film flash automatic exposure. The company bought me all the equipment and I made thousands of perfectly exposed pictures of resin at about 400x magnification. I could never have done it with my Nikon equipment.View attachment 334147

Very interesting story! That's a photo most people will never take.

The Olympus OM2n..

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