Olympus 35DC

Pretty little thing

This is a review of the Olympus 35 DC rangefinder. After i shot a film with it, i realized that it needed a CLA, so i will come back to it in the future and add a long lasting impressions section to this post.

You know when you are going to have a good day - you walk down the street to go to your local car boot sale and you find a one pound coin and then you go to the sale and you find a nice Olympus 35 DC for £2. The previous owner stated that the camera belonged to his father, used it a few years ago before switching to digital and all pictures came out fine. So i thought.... yea why not, lets not haggle on this one.

There were plenty of 35mm fixed lens rangefinder from Olympus during the 60's - too many to remember - all sold with beautiful Zuiko lenses. The Olympus 35xx series peaked with the 35SP during the late 60's. The 35SP was succeeded by the 35RD - Olympus dropped the spot metering and the 7 elements lens was scaled down to a 6 elements/5groups one. The people in the know stated that the older G.Zuiko has the edge when used wide open over the newer F.Zuiko. Also dimensions shrank a lot.

The 35DC is a relatively small camera. It is the fully automatic sibling of the 35RD but carries the same beautiful lens - a 40 f/1.7 F.Zuiko, single coated and as far as i can tell it is of Gauss design. The lens is a single unit focus design and has very good reputation on the internet.

Behind that screw you can adjust the rangefinder

The camera is meant to use the now banned old mercury battery of 1.35v - you can either use the alkaline LR9 button cell or even better use a SR44 (not LR44) and either place an O-ring around it or a loom band so that it doesn't wobble inside the battery chamber.  

 Good things include:
+ An excellent and fast lens - I love Zuiko lenses and this did not let me down.

+ Exposure meter is quite good - better than i thought - but i will need to come back to this after i have the camera serviced. 
+Metering cell is on the lens ring so takes filters into account

+ Exposure lock - press the shutter button for the needle to lock exposure and recompose. Fully depress the button to take a pic.
+ Small and well made body.
+ An SR44 battery cell can last and last....
+ While viewfinder is not the best, it is certainly very good.
+ Whisper quiet operation.
+ Smooth film advance

+ Exposure compensation button (+1.5 EV)

And now the warts:
- ALL 35DC cameras are affected by oil migrating from the focusing ring on the shutter blades.
- Uses older mercury battery - meter needs adjustment via the ISO ring.
- No manual settings - it is an full auto Point and Shoot camera.
- Extremely expensive for what they are (prices in excess of £150) - relatively rare to come across.

- Up to 800ISO only and speeds down to 1/15. The camera will lock below that and will not take a picture.

The viewfinder of the Olympus 35DC

A couple of other issues with this camera: when pressing the button to take a picture, make sure that you do it in a steady and slow fashion. Doing it too quickly can lead to trip the shutter before you have locked the exposure risking to underexpose the frame. Another thing that i found awkward is the exposure compensation button - too awkward to press it with your thumb while pressing the shutter button with your index finger.

There are two different versions of this camera, the newer one (like mine) with a battery check button on the back and the older version that does not have that button but instead has a button at the bottom of the camera that when pressed it allows to trip the shutter even when the speed is below 1/15 sec (which i think is much more useful).

BLC (backlightcontrol) and battery check button

Been thrilled with my find, i put a film in it to test it. I noticed that slow speeds (1/15 and 1/30) were sticky but what i didn't notice is that the 1/60 was also affected, the meter would not go above f/8 and 1/125 and that the rangefinder was a couple of meters off. So the majority of the pictures taken turned out to be completely unusable except from a very few of them that I post here.

100% detail on the right (Click for bigger image)

100% detail on the right (Click for bigger image)

In these ones, exposure was spot on and the lens produced beautiful results, very similar to it's single coated OM siblings. Resolution is very good - as expected from a lens of it's caliber. 

Conclusion

A very interesting camera. I do like it a lot, it is small and has a great lens. Now, the problem with these cameras is that they desperately need servicing which can add up to the their already significantly high price.

I will report back to this camera in the future. My sample needs servicing and calibration, I will post some more pictures and deliver a final verdict regarding it. My initial impression is that this is a great little camera to own although the price tag that comes with is unjustified.

Recommended.