Olympus OM-1

This ones for the camera nerds. I've made a new discovery in my parents house: an Olympus OM-1. A beautiful and still working film camera from the early 1970's. This baby is awesome. It's an all mechanical SLR, meaning you really have to know what you are doing. It was my mothers.

I went ahead and loaded it up with some expired film that my mom still had film in the fridge from the mid 90's, so we'll see how it turns out.

Shutter speed ring is located on the front of the camera. Notice the Aperture ring around the front of the lens.

First impressions: I love this camera. Its solid metal. It feels very sturdy and very heavy in your hands- that's a good thing. Also, I've never shot film before. Well, ok, I've used disposable cameras before, but I've never actually loaded film into a camera. It was a whole new experience that really makes you appreciate every picture. You really have to deliberately set up each shot, something that often doesn't happen with the new DSLRs. Sure, you still control the settings on the new cameras, but with no film and a 32GB card, you just fire away and hope that 1 out of every 10 shots comes out good. Not so when you are limited to just 24 shots.

50mm f/1.8 Zuiko lens. Pretty good glass from what I've read.

But shooting with film and such a limited number of shots really makes you think about each shot, something that I often do not do. So that is a good thing. In fact, this camera might just be the best thing that's ever happened to my photography "career". Not that I would ever use this at a wedding or ever give up my DSLR, but sometimes stripping something down to the bare essentials can be the best thing.

You can get this rig for probably around $100 on ebay.

I can't wait to see the shots that come out. I will post those soon!