Olympus OM2 SP battery saving tips

OurManInTangier

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I've recently bought one of these and have been trying to find out if you can turn the power off at all. Anyone know much about these?
 
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Put the shutter speed on B, or take the batteries out. The same goes for most OM4's. OM4Ti are supposed to have had that problem fixed.
 
From our own John Hermanson on the Manual focus forum:

"Sorry to say, all OM-PC (OM-40) have battery drain. It is best to use silver oxide batteries (and they are not all equal.) Authentic Sony SR-44W will last the longest. Drain with the OM-PC is highest when set to manual. Set to auto when not in use, or remove batteries. Drain cannot be fixed and setting it to B does not turn the drain off. B setting also does NOT turn drain off in OM-3, 4, 2S, 4T, Ti etc. 4T /Ti have drain but is about 1/6th that of a normal OM-4."

and

"It is a common belief that setting the shutter speed dial to B or 60 on OM-PC, 40, 2S, 3, 3Ti, 4, 4T, 4Ti bodies somehow turns the IC leakage off. It does not. What it does is prevent the meter relight function from working."

Here's the link:

http://forum.manualfocus.org/viewtopic.php?id=6531
 
Use "true" SR44-357/303 type batteries

Use "true" SR44-357/303 type batteries

Thanks for the info. Looks like I just need to ensure I have plenty of batteries for back up

Yup. They are cheap. And make sure you use silver, not alkaline or lithium. True high drain SR-44/357 (357 is Energizer's numbering) are required. You can check for high drain by looking at the discharge curve.

Other variants have a less dramatic voltage fall-off near exhaustion, and fool you into thinking your meter is still functioning properly.
 
Yup. They are cheap. And make sure you use silver, not alkaline or lithium. True high drain SR-44/357 (357 is Energizer's numbering) are required. You can check for high drain by looking at the discharge curve.

Other variants have a less dramatic voltage fall-off near exhaustion, and fool you into thinking your meter is still functioning properly.

The OM cameras that use silver-oxides stop working when voltage gets too low, and they have voltage regulators in them too. So using the other variants will not affect exposure accuracy, only affects battery life.
 
Cheers for the link ColinW, a plan is now slowly forming in my mind (I don't need to do this quickly, I have a good supply of SR44s to keep the OM2S going for a long while). Might see if I can do something involving a knackered winder.
 
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