Best 35mm SLR?

p.giannakis said:
I am intrigued ! What makes the OM-1 the best SLR ever?
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Im looking at my OM1 now and pondering this; its small with a great viewfinder and mechanical shutter. It has mirror lock up and feels silky smooth in the downside it won't work with 1.55v batteries but I can use her with hearing aid batts and a ring of wire. Don't think I have used such a nice SLR....Turns head and looks at the OM2 well maybe the OM2 lose the mirror lock up but gain aperture priority and a properly useable manual. Hard call for me the OM2 slightly edges it, but in fairness to Keith Ill call it a heat 😀
 
p.giannakis said:
I am intrigued ! What makes the OM-1 the best SLR ever?
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Best SLR? No.
One of the BEST, yes, definitely.

But what is interesting is that it also seems to be the most loved.
You are aware of a *long* running thread here in the Rangefinderforum (ironic) that is kept alive by people loving this SLR (and its siblings), don't you?

Try to name another SLR that is talked about that much in favor, outside of its own dedicated websites.

As for why? you'd have to use one yourself and draw your own conclusion. Listening to people's opinions are just inviting trouble. 🙂
 
The Pentax LX is the best manual focus 35mm SLR ever made.

Anybody who says differently is a heretic.

In my opinion anyway 🙂

Weather sealing, superb build quality, unbelieveable off-the-film metering, interchangeable finders. It's just incredible.

No, I won't sell you mine.
 
Funny, I usually would answer with the camera that is right over the horizon. When I used the Pentax K1000 I wanted the Leica R4s; when I used the Pentax LX I wanted the Nikon F3HP; when I used the Nikon F4 I was pretty happy, but lusted in my heart after a Leica R7. . . you see that this is more a meditation on the nature of human desire and my own foolishness than anything else. I just sold m Nikon F5, but I have kept the F4, F3HP and the R4s and R5 I eventually acquired. Best? I guess that depends on what you are doing. Some cameras become classic because they do something better than any other other. Some become classic because they do so many things so well for so long. I think the Speed Graphic was like that. It was the Swiss Army Knife of cameras in the 1940's. The SLR I currently pine for is the Nikon F6 . . .but of those on the list the Pentax LX is the only one I sold and then purchased again later on.

Edit: the funny thing about this is that the "chip" in the camera was always the same: 400 speed b&w film. So the gain in quality from switching from one to the other was usually minimal, except that the LX and the F4 had superb meters that were hard to fool and gave me more properly exposed frames per roll than my K1000 or Nikon FM2 had. . . But if you were to run negatives from those years through a scanner today, there would be less difference among them than between the quality of the file resulting from any of those scans and the quality of the file from a Leica M9.
 
If the original poster hasn't been utterly exhausted by this thread, I have a suggestion. I love the Olympus OM system, but after aging eyes forced me to switch to an autofocus system I used a pair of Canon EOS A2s for eight years before going digital. [FONT=&quot]The A2's combination of just the right features, precision, silence, durability, and reliability made it one of the best cameras ever made for day-in, day-out professional work. They were used by an astonishing number of professionals in their day, yet now you can buy them for pennies. And they will work just fine with all your L glass.

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As the owner of Canon EOS lenses you might want to consider looking for the unusual 1N RS (or the lighter/smaller EOS RT). It is a heavy monster of a camera with the unusual Pellicle mirror that allows for constant viewing without any blackout. It is perfect for flash/portrait photography and extremely fast.
 
The electronics in my mint looking Aria gave up the ghost after a few rolls. The ISO can no longer be set, or reported. The screen works, but the set buttons don't.

My RTS III started to have a problem with the mirror hanging. It needs repaired. I just haven't used it since a few weeks after getting it.

Rxs still working.

Now using the Zeiss optics on my NEX-7. My venture into SLRs has been without much success.
 
Aria

Aria

Get a Yashica FX3 for a back up for those lenses.

bwcolor said:
The electronics in my mint looking Aria gave up the ghost after a few rolls. The ISO can no longer be set, or reported. The screen works, but the set buttons don't.

My RTS III started to have a problem with the mirror hanging. It needs repaired. I just haven't used it since a few weeks after getting it.

Rxs still working.

Now using the Zeiss optics on my NEX-7. My venture into SLRs has been without much success.
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Of all of the SLRs I have used, the best to me is also an Olympus. The Olympus Pen. It is built like a tank, it is tiny, you get 72 shots per roll with it, you can still get decent enlargements with fine grain film and really fun funky grainy enlargements with fast film. The vertical orientation is great for keeping people from realizing when their picture is being taken. It is also quiet for an SLR. The DOF preview button on the lens is a fantastic feature. I prefer street shooting with it to street shooting with leicas.
 
Merkin said:
Of all of the SLRs I have used, the best to me is also an Olympus. The Olympus Pen. It is built like a tank, it is tiny, you get 72 shots per roll with it, you can still get decent enlargements with fine grain film and really fun funky grainy enlargements with fast film. The vertical orientation is great for keeping people from realizing when their picture is being taken. It is also quiet for an SLR. The DOF preview button on the lens is a fantastic feature. I prefer street shooting with it to street shooting with leicas.
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+1 .
 
+1 for the Pentax LX
Still regret selling mine... Had it fully serviced but after 2 years it started having issues again and became unreliable... getting it fixed properly would have been costly and required a donor camera...

But apart from that... build quality, accessories, size, metering, lenses... the best film camera i ever had...
 
Canon EF

Canon EF

Best of all worlds for me: FD/FL-compatible; electronically-timed slow shutter speeds & all-mechanical from 1 second and above; can use readily available SR-44 batteries; Copal Square vertical metal shutter; ability to do double-exposures; very few if any flexible circuit boards; rugged body; inexpensive to boot!
 
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