The Film Retriever

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...

This is a quick review of the Konica Autoreflex T (my variant is the T2). This is a thrift shop find - i paid a bit more than i usually am willing to pay but it looked in so good condition so i ended up buying it. There are four variations of this camera, all of them look pretty much the same but they are updates of the original T which went out in 1967, one offering hot shoe, the other multiple exposures, the last one having a split microprism etc. The T2 reviewed here is virtually an T with a shutter lock and a redesigned shutter button. Now, don't confuse the T-line with the A-line which is the more economical line with certain features being removed. There is also the original Auto Reflex (two words) which is the firs AE SLR camera and a very different beast altogether - offers also half frame. After the final incarnation, the T3N came the TC-line and others that are very different cameras. First impressions are mighty good - this is a very heavy camera, ve...

The Zuiko 35 f/2 This is a small review of the Zuiko 35 f/2, the black sheep of the Zuiko family. I got this lens relatively cheap as it is in a beaten up cosmetic condition but the glass is in excellent shape and clean so I decided to hand in my hard earned cash and bring it back home with me. There are a couple more posts I have made about the Zuiko lenses, one can be found here (The Zuiko lenses) and one here (Zuiko Silvernose 50 f/1.4 Vs Zuiko "Made in Japan") - have a look there to see if you find anything interesting regarding this line of lenses. The Zuiko 35 f/2 has a relatively bad reputation on the internet. It is not that it is a bad lens, it is more the fact that it suffers (according to the reviewers) from artifacts - mostly chromatic aberrations- that are very prominent when you use digital cameras. The thing with this lens is that it was produced as a lens to use in low light situations. Remember, OM cameras had shutter speeds up to 1/1000 s...

So, i got a Nikkor 28 f/2.8 AIS for £5. What a deal! Well not really - the lens is full of scratches and internal dust. But I imagine, getting a lens for £5 is a good deal anyway. But how does it perform with all these scratches? Is it up to any good? There is one way to find out. My very unscientific test is thought out like this: I will shoot some pictures with the scratched and destroyed 28 f/2.8 AIS and i will shoot the same ones with the immaculate Nikkor 28-70 and compare the pictures. I developed the film - a FOMA 200 - in Rodinal 1:50 and scan the negatives with an old Canoscan 8600F at 4.800 dpi and see which lens performs better. Of course, a 28 AIS performs much better than the Nikkor Zoom, although the 28-70 is a very well respected zoom lens. I shot four sets of pictures at apertures f/4, /5.6 and f/8. No unsharp mask or any adjustment done, all settings on the scanner have been set to default. These are the scans straight out of the scanner. Here are...

This is a review for the Nikon F5. I base this review on the 3 films i have shot with it over the last three months. As it is always the case, if you need a complete overview about the F5, background information and full insight about its numerous functions, visit MIR's excellent website and also have a look at the review by Thom . I will limit my review on my experience of using the camera and i will compare it with it's predecessor - the Nikon F4s - and it's rival; the Canon EOS 1n RT. Using the camera Once you pick up the camera, you are surprised by its weight and its build. Metal, metal and some more metal. Despite being a slightly bigger camera than the F4s, the camera is better designed and balances better in my hand. The hand grip is thinner allowing better hold of the camera. All buttons, switches and dials are well designed and weather-sealed. Of course there are a number of ergonomic hiccups. There are a lot of complaints...

This is a review of the Olympus OM-10. The camera came to me via a colleague at work – it belonged to her father in law and was kindly passed on to me once she found out that I use old film cameras. The Olympus OM-10 has been one of Olympus' most commercially successful models and that is because it was based on a very successful recipe – the OM-10 is a (feature) stripped down OM-2n, a very popular professional model reviewed in this blog. It maintained the small size and compatibility with the Zuiko system, stuck with the aperture priority mode which was so very popular in the early eighties and offered the optional 'Manual Adaptor' that could offer full manual operation. And most importantly, it uses the highly regarded OTF plane metering system of the OM-2n. These features made the OM-10 a very attractive offer, especially if you think that it was competitively priced – Olympus sold these cameras by millions. Top plate is clean and simple The size of t...