Got a friend who has a point and shoot Olympus - makes her a Zuikoholic but not as we know it! She got some fantastic results on her South America/Antactic trip earlier this year and even the panoramic and zoom features worked surprisingly well. But like all good things her camera is beginning to misbehave - blank frames, flash not always working. Not much chance of a camera repair, so, why not go SLR, says I?
I've got a couple of OM-10s so I thought we would have some gentle immersion into this new world. Fitted one for her with a mij 50mm f1.8 and lessons began. Loading film - nothing automatic about that in an OM-10, and apart from winding the practice film back into the cassette, all went well! Switching camera on and off - OK. Focussing using the standard type 1-13 screen went like a dream.
The difficulty came in Lesson 4 when the issue of depth of field arose from the harmless question 'what are all these numbers here for?' I thought it would be simple to explain because there is the 'depth of field' button on the lens. So after a quick verbal explanation, the instruction 'focus on this', a question 'are you in focus?', 'now push in the button and what do you notice about the sharpness of things in front of and behind of what you focussed on?'. The reply was 'I've got a black semi-circle'.
And try as I could to get her to adjust the angle through which she was looking through the viewfinder, the black semi-circle remained for her, either at top or bottom.
End of lesson - there is always tomorrow!
I did wonder how much things were affected because she wears glasses. But some things we just tend to take for granted don't we?
Next day with film loaded we spent over an hour in St Pancras Station (London). A very enjoyable time too - two friends, same camera, same lens, same film, taking pictures in the same venue at the same time. She said she had really enjoyed the experience and loved using the camera - it felt really nice to use. We set both cameras on f2 and let the speed look after itself - this was really a focussing experience for her, and an opportunity for me to see how the lens behaved at that aperture.
Neither of us has yet finished our film - both 36 exposure and I can't complain because she gave me mine!
She has looked into Rangefinderforum once or twice - I send her the odd email: have a look at this great photo! And she has dipped into 'Gallery Pics of the Week'. Refreshingly she wants to take film and strongly resists pressure to 'go digital'.
My OM-10 hasn't been returned! And I'm very happy for her to hang onto it. I think we have a true Zuikoholic in the making! I wonder when we will get onto neutral density filters?
