is the olympus OM2 the best analog 35mm camera?

[Godfrey]

If a photography club has a heated debate on what someone opines to be "the best 35mm analog camera", they've lost their way. 🙄

G

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Hey, here's a topic for debate: What's better, a film Olympus, or a digital Olympus? BWAHAHAHA!!!!

 

[agentlossing]

Hey, here's a topic for debate: What's better, a film Olympus, or a digital Olympus? BWAHAHAHA!!!!

I liked my EM5II a lot, but it had too many buttons for its size. That carries over into the OM5. I really with OMDS would go the way of Fujifilm in reducing the controls on the body down to the essential ones. Small, button-dense cameras are hard for me to hold and use.

 

[Godfrey]

My Olympus E-1 is just about my favorite 35mm-type SLR camera. It has a minimum of controls and features, a superb 5Mpixel Kodak CCD sensor, and a superbly ergonomic, well shaped body. The 2001 sensor when outputting raw files to be rendered with todays (20+ year later) raw converters produce excellent results right up to the ISO 3200 limit. And the Zuiko Digital HQ and EHQ series lenses are superb. Its immediate E-3 and E-5 successors improved on image quality, ISO, and pixel resolution, but lost a little on ergonomics. The slightly later E-M1, fitted with battery grip, managed to maintain most of the ergonomics, but feature-creep added a bunch of buttons and switches that I always felt got in the way more than they helped my work.

The E-1 is simple on about the same order as the OM2n and OM4-Ti, both of which I enjoyed back in the day, and yet it's a bit more ergonomic. There's a reason I simply don't want to let the E-1 go. 🙂

G

... by the way: "analog camera" is an extremely silly expression IMO. There are film cameras and digital cameras ... both are about 99.9% analog in their operation. 😉

 

[p.giannakis]

I have quite a few OMs and the OM-2n is my favourite. It's small, it is quiet, it is smooth, has great meter and viewfinder, accepts great lenses: I don't need anything more. I think the "Best camera" bit is just a clickbate statement to add fuel to the fire.

This camera has given me so many good pictures and i had it overhauled by Luton Cameras last year - hopefully it will keep providing good service for the next few years.

 

[santino]

The best 35mm SLR is the one you have with you 😉

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I have quite a few OMs and the OM-2n is my favourite. It's small, it is quiet, it is smooth, has great meter and viewfinder, accepts great lenses: I don't need anything more. I think the "Best camera" bit is just a clickbate statement to add fuel to the fire.

This camera has given me so many good pictures and i had it overhauled by Luton Cameras last year - hopefully it will keep providing good service for the next few years.

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I honestly don't give a damn what anybody shoots with, but I do care about pictures! Shab, these two mini-portfolios that you've included in this thread remind me why you and your pictures are such a treasure to enjoy here on RFF. You take ordinary events that might just be cute or pretty in lesser hands, and turn them into photos that are honest, sometimes raw, always beautiful, and so often full of joy! They make any discussion about what camera was used a moot point. Thank you for continuing to share with us!

 

[JohnGellings]

Come on now... are we in high school?

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Come on now... are we in high school?

Umm... sorta. A lot of folks never get past high school, behaviorally, emotionally, socially, etc.

 

[trix4ever]

I thought the viewfinder was wonderful, didn't really like anything much else about them. Felt too small, too fragile.
Rather use my Nikon F2a any day. YMMV

 

[wlewisiii]

I personally always considered it:
1) Nikon but I could never afford them.
2) Canon - good enough and much more affordable
3) Pentax - always liked them, just liked Canon more.
4) Minolta and most of the rest
5) Olympus - nice glass, strange and fragile bodies.
6) everything from other than Japan.

 

[wlewisiii]

Come on now... are we in high school?

"High School Never Ends"
Bowling For Soup

 

[David Murphy]

The OM2 is an amateur grade 35mm SLR of average build quality. One issue with the OM-2 is that it is battery dependent. I consider the slightly earlier OM-1 and variants to be superior. Olympus Zuiko lenses have credible optics, but are prone to haze. However, aftermarket support for the OM mount was fairly good, so many lenses are available still.

 

[Tim Murphy]

Dear Board,

I have several OM SLRS and like them all. I have an OM4 due to arrive tomorrow. I just recently started looking at Olympus film cameras and have managed to score a few Zuiko lenses at reasonable prices on the used market. I kind of like that they are small, but I shoot an OM-D-EMII so I'm kind of used to small and fiddly!

I still like my Canon F-1 my Nikon F2A, and my Nikkormats, and the Pentax cameras I've bought over the years. I don't think any one camera is vastly better than the others. I just like the old film cameras that I could never afford when I was younger when they were popular.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

 

[Pioneer]

I enjoy using lots of different cameras but am partial to simple. I suspect the fact that I have used the same Pentax K1000 pretty steadily since 1987 probably disqualifies me from voting.

 

[agentlossing]

I enjoy using lots of different cameras but am partial to simple. I suspect the fact that I have used the same Pentax K1000 pretty steadily since 1987 probably disqualifies me from voting.

I feel like the K1000s I know of have held up to the years better than most of the other Pentaxes.

 

[mdarnton]

I worked at a Camera Shop when the OM-1 was new, OM-2 coming out. We had a 15% defect rate on Olympus OM's and steered people towards Pentax and Nikon.
I had the Olympus OM-2P Spot/Program: severe battery drain problems, I gave it away for someone needing parts. This is a common problem with the OM-2 series.
I've found that Olympus makes great lenses, but- mechanically frail. I replaced some way-to-thin springs that were under constant pressure on an Olympus 35SP, bought cheap with the broken mechanism and sold showing the heavy duty replacement at a good price.

This was my experience as a professional (news) user back then. I liked the design idea but it was not ergonomic, was hard to hold, and my lenses fell apart way too soon. Just fell apart, like screws falling out! And that noise! When I got back to film I bought Nikon FG bodies. . . Just what the OM should have been at a similar price, and wasn't, but they focus in the wrong direction. I got used to it.

 

[Richard G]

Not only don’t you need to turn on the OM2n to have metered exposures but with a flat battery you get 1/125s and 1/60s working with sunny 16.

 

[Richard G]

I never refurbished my father’s OM4 as it was a battery drainer and I would have used it infrequently and didn’t need or want its clever metering.

 

[CMur12]

I'm a manual-focus Minolta fan, myself (especially the SR-T 102 with MLU and the X-570 + Autowinder G).

I really admired the Nikons F and F2, as well as the Olympus OM-1 when it came out. My problem with the OM-1 is that the finder magnification doesn't allow me to see all of it with glasses on. I'm guessing the OM-2 is the same.

When it comes to auto-exposure (aperture preferred or shutter preferred), I have to have AEL (auto-exposure lock) for it to be useful. No AEL is a deal-breaker, and I don't think the OM-2 had it (?).

(Like Shab, I'm not hard on my cameras.)

- Murray