O.T. - Olympus OM-4T

[zuikomatt]

I'm just about to have a pair of OMs (1 and 2n) cla'd. Don't suppose you know anyone in B'lava, zuikomatt, who would do a competent job?

No, I don't know.
Only repairman , I know, is on Palackého, near Prolaika, but I know nothing about him:-(.
Spyderman has some experiencis with OM bodies, but he'll take responsibility only for his cameras.

 

[Trius]

Yes, Welcome to you Skip! I'm glad you're here, because you know a helluva lot more than me about OMs, and Olympus in general.

I've noted that high SN 50/1.4s are sometimes going for more than what Skip has stated. That's just the market at work, but at any given time a high SN 50/1.4 may go for $60-80 on that site. Other days, you might get lucky and get one for $40 or even less. Me, I'm looking for the 50/1.2 @ $50. 😉

Edit: 260067929605 went for $86.77USD. Am I right or am I right? 😀

 

[freeranger]

No, I don't know.
Only repairman , I know, is on Palackého, near Prolaika, but I know nothing about him:-(.
Spyderman has some experiencis with OM bodies, but he'll take responsibility only for his cameras.

Thanks Martin. They are off to Germany then. Tomorrow, because for some reason the PO at Aupark will no longer accept camera-sized packages to post, 🙁 maybe they will tomorrow...who knows? I don't mind shelling out for the CLA because they were free and, apart from the sticky seals, are cosmetically perfect. I've replaced seals on rangefinders before but would not know where to start with the mirror dampening on an SLR.

Welcome Skip, nice to see you!

 

[PeterL]

Hi,
Heh, seems like the Olympus Mailing List is moving here 🙂
The OM-4T(i) is my favourite camera ever. Not that I've used too many, but after seeing that camera and lusting for it for a while, there wasn't too much I could hold and not be disappointed. The weight, size , lenses, spot metering system and viewfinder (with a 2-series focussing screen) combined are unique and brilliant. My 90/f2 macro used to be glued on it, then it was the 50/1.4, but now my focussing is off so it needs maintenance. I'll stick to my Zorki & Leica iiic for a while.

Peter.

 

[Trius]

Peter: There seem to be fewer OT posts than on the list ... or at least there is an OT section that one can ignore! 😀

 

[Uncle Bill]

I had an OM-4 but it developed expensive shutter issues so I parted company with it in a trade with my Tech for an OM-1md, and I got a motordrive to go with it. Its when the repair almost cost the same as what you paid for the body.

I want an OM-4ti, the metering is brilliant good and I miss that. When I got cash......

 

[giellaleafapmu]

Today, I looked in a shop and found a Olympus OM-4T in champange in excellent shape, a slight dent on the prism. Inside super clean. The lens on it is a 50mm F1.4. Glass is super clean. The price on it for $400 USD. Is this a good deal, or is this high? It is so tempting, yet $400 on some film would go a long way also.....should I?

Cheers

Mark
Quito, EC

Hi,

I have an Olympus OM4 (not the T one...) and it is a great camera, the price however could be a bit lower, at least that was true for me in Bogota' (not too far away from where you are compared to other people writing in this newsgroup).

Since I bought mine not too long ago and I had the chance to look at many ones before buying I would recommend you check the slow times in automatic. I am not sure why but almost all the cameras I saw measured properly and were precise in manual mode but made slow times in automatic veryyyyyyy slooooooowwwwwww....yahwn! A repairman told me that this is a common problem and even adviced me not to bother but I could use this "defect" to ask for a discount 🙂

The only real situation in which this could be a problem is if you like to put your camera on the floor of a church aiming to the roof and would like to have times in the 5--10 seconds range but I found out that with some bracketing (done by changing the iso-setting) I could get usually at least one reasonable exposure even with my camera which indeed has the problem I mentioned.

Giella lea Fapmu

 

[scottgee1]

Are you sure you tried with film ? I have never had this problem on the
various OM bodies that I tried, but when you play with the camera in
automatic mode without film, it slows down the shutter by several stops
since the OTF measurement is calibrated towards light reflection
from film (instead of the black pressure plate).

Just a thought,

Roland..

Giella, my experience and comment is the same as Roland's. Put in a roll of film and the "problem" will go away.

If I were you, I would NOT take an Olympus (or any other camera) to that repairman. 😡

ScottGee1

 

[Trius]

Roland and Scott are correct. Yes, there could be a problem, but without film the OTF metering is using the black film pressure plate for reading the exposure, which is quite different than the reflectance of film. Also note that the reading before exposure is read off the shutter curtain, which has a pattern of white rectangles on it. This pattern is designed to provide centre weighted (I think) metering and exposure information in the viewfinder. I'm not sure how the spot metering works with the pattern.

Whenever I shoot in very low light with an OM-2, I am sometimes surprised at the length of the exposure, but the exposure generally is correct on film.

 

[giellaleafapmu]

Giella, my experience and comment is the same as Roland's. Put in a roll of film and the "problem" will go away.

If I were you, I would NOT take an Olympus (or any other camera) to that repairman. 😡

ScottGee1

Mmmmmh, that's an interesting statement and it is probably what happened. In any case I have a few little doubts.

Let's say that the camera measures light from the reflection on the curtains' pattern she (for some reason I tend to call cameras by "she" instread of "it") doesn't know whether there is film or not. I then shoot (I cannot change this one for "take a photograph" or "expose film") and she measures from a pressure plate instead of a film. Could that give a 5x change in the exposure only for a long exposure even when I am pointing at a greycard? Maybe it could if the camera knows about reciprocity low but it seems to me a bit strange... Also, why should this happen only from time to time (here I don't have a real test or a statistic but I think this is what it happens with my camera, I shall check more carefully)? Of course, I tend to believe you more than anyone else (expecially since I never had any problem with real photographs) but it sounds a bit strange that "that repairman" would have said something so badly wrong since he did repair several cameras of mine and I always got very clean works for which I had never anything to regret (he is an official deler and repairman of Olympus by the way) and also since I bought the camera from a friend and I just gave it to him asking about the problem without even saying that I was considering buying...

Anyway, whatever the case, I already have the camera which in fact gives to me no practical problem and, even if I (and or the repairman) am wrong, it makes no harm to check the slow speeds (mmmmh, all right, with film inside 🙄 ) before buying.

Giella lea Fapmu

 

[PeterL]

Oh, talking about long exposures reminds me... I have a pinhole body cap with a hole of 0.1mm. It's actually too small to be a perfect pinhole. I measured the distance to the film plane and it's about 5cm, so I tend to call it my 50/f512 lens. I could use that power of 2 to calculate the exposure time, but instead I just rely on the OM-4T's auto-exposure. It comes out just perfect on slide film ! I once doubled the auto-exposure time to compensate for the Schwarzschild effect but the picture that the camera had timed came out much better. Very impressive metering system.

Peter.

 

[Archie]

well I have a rather basic question, but maybe a OM-4 can help with that.

I'm shooting a lot of concerts and opera stuff in the last time. Well I'm using a Minolta XE for that purpose, which has center weighted metering. It's always a lot of guessing and experience (which I do not really have) to get the right exposure. So does a spot meter really help with such situations? Well if that would be the case I'm thinking about switching from Minolta to Olympus. And the camera of the choice would be a OM-4T(i).

 

[Trius]

giellaleafapmu: An incorrect battery could also be in play here. If someone put in something other than a high-drain silver-oxide battery (e.g., not an SR44W or 375/303), then yes, that behaviour could be expected.

The only way to REALLY tell is to either have an experienced Olympus technician check it out, or try it with film... with a proper fresh battery, of course. The only OM that doesn't use the SR44W battery type, AFAIK, is the OM-1, which used the mercury PX625.

 

[PeterL]

Archie,

I've used my OM-4T using spot metering to take pictures at a concert. The way I worked was to take a few measurements of the heads of the musicians (all causasian types, whose skin colour is pretty close to 18% grey) and then to fix my exposure at that, i.e. setting the camera to manual exposure at those values. The exposure came out great on all pictures. So yes, spot metering is a good tool in concert photography. But you can also buy a separate spot meter and to the same.


Peter.

 

[Archie]

thanks peter,

well the only problem is that you are much slower with a separate spot meter, as in concerts light situation changes really fast.
I'm using a minolta xe at the moment which is quite a huge monster. and as I'm also doing much street shooting, a smaller (and black) camera would be my preference

 

[greentea]

I would say 400$ is fair if without dent, even that dent is very slight, it makes the camera away from intact , and that makes different when you want to sale it.

 

[ruben]

Not specifically related to concerts, I would put the dilema from my personal angle.

With my Sekonic spot meter I near absolute security for any camera I may use, and obviously those without meter. A spot meter gives also a kind of "integrative" reading for tele lenses, where whatever is not spot simply doesn't.

On the other hand, and I repeat I am very subective here, the OM4 (ti or not) is the only camera with which I would dare to get out without a spot meter, whenever I need absolute security. But of course I am talking about "absolute" security and in daily life I use to use simple cheap camera readings and have a small digi in my pocket.

So in conclusion, either with a spot meter or the OM4 (ti or not), you will be dressed to kill - if this is what you are looking after.

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[giellaleafapmu]

thanks peter,

well the only problem is that you are much slower with a separate spot meter, as in concerts light situation changes really fast.

It does not in most classic music concerts... 😉

Anyway, I am not sure a separate spot meter is really that slower but I am also not sure it is much cheaper than a second hand OM-3, OM-4...

Also, most good spot meters are larger in size and look like a gun (or an hairdrier). 🙂

Giella lea Fapmu

 

[Trius]

Giella: You make a good point about the appearance of a spotmeter. It today's climate, carrying one can be problematic, unless it's a Weston Ranger 9.

 

[giellaleafapmu]

Giella: You make a good point about the appearance of a spotmeter. It today's climate, carrying one can be problematic, unless it's a Weston Ranger 9.

In Bogota' it could even be dangerous... 🙂

Giella lea Fapmu

PS
I use a Gossen Lunasix 3 with the 7 degree "almost-spot" attachment, it is not too bad but I don't think it is better than the OM-4 internal spot meter.