And the first post goes to my first, my deariest, my favorite, my most wonderful, “Olympus OM-1”. This is my first SLR camera. My dad gave it to me when I’m in senior high school when I told him that I want to join the photography club back in the days. It was in the year 1999 - 2000 I think. When I first got her, the metering was already broken so I learned how to shoot without it. Asking my friend “what does the meter counts?” when we’re hunting together, and it was fun. lots of time my friends made a joke of me and my camera “you’ll get old using that old camera”, “go find a new camera” and so on.. it came to my mind at the time to sell her, to buy an autofocus camera. Gladly I didn’t!
I lost my original lens cap (it fell down from a bridge to a raging stream…) while I was traveling in sukabumi back in the year 2000, and I thanked my friend for reminding me to wear the camera strap on my neck for safety reason, otherwise she’ll be gone.
It was hard to find accessories for OM-1 back then here in Indonesia (up ‘till now!). Lenses. Lenses and lenses..even a lens cap and a camera strap it’s hard to find here (except for the 2nd grade / locals). And don’t even talk about Olympus flashes.. dreaming is all you can do. For about, mmm… 4 or 5 years I think, I only use 1 lens anywhere, everywhere. And I’m really happy with the lens that I owned. It’s the Olympus Zuiko Auto-S 55mm/f 1,2. It’s the fastest lens I got, still.
my Olympus OM-1 with Zuiko Auto-S 55m/ f.1,2 & Zuiko Auto-T 135mm/ f.3,5 and with it’s leather case.
But now the lens is not in its best condition, the aperture its oily or something, so when I try to take pictures, it just slowly closed for like 5-8 seconds.. so I set the aperture to 1,2 as the default setting, just to occasionally use it. I went to many recommended repairman in Bandung and Jakarta, none of them could fix the problem.. so.. it’s sad really. Anyone with a good recommendation for lens repairing?
A year a go, I also find pretty much OM lenses, basically is the 50mm/ f 2,0. I found like 7 of them. None of them in a good condition. So you can forget it. Ooh except for this one lens that I saw somewhere in Astana Anyar road. An Zuiko Auto-S 50mm/f 1,8. Just a few scratches on the lens body and one small scratch on the lens (which it doesn’t affect your picture.. at all.. just a tiny little spot maybe.. no it’s going to be fine). And in the end I didn’t buy that lens. The salesman asked for 650,000 IDR. Which is just a ridiculous price and I’m not that interested to bargain, at all. I’ll buy that lens for 125.000 IDR, not more.
Back in the year 2004 when I went to college in Bandung, I finally got my 2nd Olympus lens,Olympus Zuiko Auto-T 135mm/f 3.5. i got it at Cihapit flea market. It took me 2 days to think whether or not I should buy the lens. It’s pretty expensive for me (as a college student too), it was a hard bargain, and finally I got the lens for 165,000 IDR (about 17 USD) from 235,000 IDR (about 24 USD) and in a great condition, well near mint condition you can say.. sooner you’ll find out how picky I am to buy things hehehe.. price is the main factor for me buying things. Very limited budget but so many things to want. Oh well..
My OM-1 has a few dents, on the top near the flash hotshoe, on the base plate near the battery compartment. The leather skin is starting to cracked open in a few corners, the camera back doesn’t open smoothly anymore, and there’s a few tricks to close it too.
The OM-1 it’s a great camera, a smaller body and much wider viewfinder compared to it’s competitors. With quite different place to put the shutter speed dial, rather on the top plate,Maitani, the architect placed it on the lens mount. So you’ll get your 1 hand to fully control the speed, apertures an focusing. it comes really handy for me =). She became my favorite and my best kept camera. Still trying to find the accessories until God knows when.
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