In my last post I wrote about bringing an Olympus OM-10 back to life. I've yet to put a film through it, but everything seems OK, so I'm hopeful. The shot of the cows was taken on my OM-1. Not the same OM-1 I had when I was young - that one parted company with me a long time ago, unfortunately. That pain is slightly mitigated by the fact that it was fairly beat up and had a lot of desilvering of the prism that I understand is common with OM-1s. The OM-1 I currently have I bought about 10 years ago. It was a not-terribly-expensive eBay purchase (around the £50 mark I think) and I sent it off to get cleaned, new light seals and a general check-up. I was fortunate to hit upon Michael Spencer to do the work - he was absolutely first class, knocking out a small dent on the top plate and re-wiring it so that the meter runs on SR44 batteries, rather than the original (now unavailable) PX625 batteries. Michael retired a few years ago, which is a pity, as there were a couple of issues with that last film that suggest all is not well with the camera.
The first thing I noticed was a light leak. It happened intermittently, on a couple of frames near the beginning of the film and again towards the end:
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| You can see the vertical band towards the left of the first two frames |
Then at the end of the film there was something weird happening with the framing:
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| The framing is off for the last two frames of the film. |
Since I developed the film I've fired the shutter a few times at different speeds (with the back open) and everything seems fine, but obviously I'm only eye-balling it. The wind-on mechanism appears as smooth as ever, so I don't know. I'm hoping that both issues are due to lack of use and not something more serious. It's been a while since I picked up the OM1, to be honest. I think I've too many 35mm cameras lying around (I know, it's a nice problem to have). Maybe I need to be more structured about cycling through them to keep them all in working order. Anyway, I've loaded another film - a short one, just 15 frames - and I'll shoot that and see if either problem recurs. If it does, I'll have to look into repair options.
John Hermanson repaired my OM-1. He specializes in the single-digit OMs. http://www.zuiko.com/. Unfortunately you'd have to ship the camera to the US.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jim. I'll bear him in mind should I need the OM-1 serviced, although I suspect the postage costs would be prohibitive. Plus I suspect I'd get stung for import taxes on the return journey as well - from past experience they tend to slap the tax on first and ask questions later. Often the paperwork involved means it's easier to pay up...something I don't doubt they rely on!
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