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| The old OM10 on the left and the new boy on the right |
When I was 12 years old I was in Manilla with my parents. Now this sounds exotic and it is not a spelling error. Manilla is actually a very small town in northern New South Wales and my Dad's home town. My Dad's cousin had a subscription to National Geographic and he gave me a pile of old magazines. I was immediately a fan due of the articles from exotic destinations that made country New South Wales seem so bland. I was also captured by the advertising for the cameras. Camera's seemed indellibly linked with adventurous travel and the one camera that stuck in my memory was the OM10. Later in life I could afford my own SLR, although not an OM10, but I still loved the classic lines and the sliver and black
finish of the OM series.
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Note the slim and small camera body on the OMD EM5
on the right. Can't wait to try the 50mm lens on the digital |
Later, when film became a distant memory for many and my old SLR had died, we inherited an OM10 and some lenses. It required some small repairs by a well known specialist bombay camera repair man, Ajay Turkar. We had a Panasonic Lumix with the Zeiss lens which is a good camera but taking photos with the OM10 reminded me of the excitement of film. The wait for the processing and not knowing what your pictures will reveal almost extended the excitement of a trip. The OM10 still takes great photos and a number of the photos on our blog have been taken with that camera in recent times.
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Add a 14mm pancake lens then
straight into a jacket pocket |
The Panasonic, which is a very good camera, was limited in terms of the processor and the ability to interchange lenses. The lack of a truly wide angle lens and the lens being relatively slow in low light were limitations. I started looking for a replacement and to my surprise Olympus released the OMD EM5 an OM10 look alike. Importantly, it met almost all my criteria. The camera body is small and, with a pancake wide angle lens, is pocketable for climbing and skiing trips. I hate taking off my pack to take photos almost as much as big camera bags dangling around neck or of hip belts. So a high quality pocketable camera is a godsend. It has a high resolution electronic view finder which is great when shooting in bright light above the snow line. I also like the feel of framing a shot while shooting in manual and adjusting the F stop and shutter speed with the camera against my eye. I was never able to do this with the Panasonic due to the positioning of the buttons. It is weather proof which is great for landscapes in the mountains and it is fast and uses the same processors as much larger DLSRs. All this with a classic retro look. I just need a photo journalist vest, flares and some swooping side burns and I will feel like I am right out of a 70's National Geographic.
It took some time for the purchase to happen and it has not been without challenges. As with any complex electrical goods it takes time to work your way through the 100 page user manual. I was initially disappointed with the wide angle lens until I worked out that I needed to turn off the electronic telephoto and it took time to get the settings on the camera right. Now I know my way around the camera, I am looking forward to getting out with the camera and, as we are entering an intense period of festival's in India, I should get plenty of opportunity.
I am getting an adapter so that the camera will take the old OM10 Zuiko lenses. I am sure I will enjoy the feel of the non-auto focus lenses on the OMD EM5.
