Analog Blog: Shouldn't have done that.

October 23, 2024  •  Leave a Comment

Analog Blog:

I never thought it would happen with me and the Olympus from the auction.

Generally I don’t get to the local auction house for the viewings, just take a chance on the online catalogue images.  Older cameras come up quite often.  Sometimes there are none of any great interest and occasionally there is a camera worth going after.  One batch had a Canonet, but as usual the images on the web site were shocking.  My partner was going to be nearby the auction house that day.  If I asked nicely she would drop in and take a closer look, maybe send me a phone picture. Very understanding... I am very lucky.

The Canonet was in a box of other accessories and a few other cameras.  The Canonet seemed worth a go, so I bid and won.  My partner was still in the vicinity when the auction finished, so returned home with yet another auction lot in a box for me. I tried not to get too excited and at first it was probably as well. The box contained a couple of scrappy cameras, three tripods the Canonet and a small leatherette case at the bottom with something in it.  This last item hadn’t been visible in any of the pictures and my partner hadn’t seen it.

The much anticipated Canonet was a disappointment. It had been subject to a bodge job at some point in its life and nothing worked properlyPossibly repairable, but a lot of effort. On the shelf for the future then.  My attention turned to the little leather looking case.  No markings other than the Greek letter μ on a chrome tab.  Opening the case revealed an Olympus μ [mju:]-1.  Well, it certainly looked quite nice.  

I recalled reading an article about the µ (mju), pronounced mew, on 35mmc.  Allegedly a capable little camera.  It’s Olympus, and there is nothing wrong with that reputation. I reasoned it probably wouldn’t work, it was in box of junk after all.  Sliding the lens cover back, that all looked quite clean, in fact very much so.  So next to get into the battery compartment… bound to be problems there.  No furry residue, all empty and clean; so now to find out.

With new batteries in, sliding the lens cover open saw the little machine spring into life. The lens moved forward with a whirr, the LCD panel on the top showed the flash setting and a letter E.  Oh dear, that could be an error… or of course it could also be… ah yes.  I opened the camera and brushed out the inside, although there wasn't really any muck to remove. No problem with seals that I could see, it fact it all looked like it had seen little use and stood the test of time better than I have. Into the fridge for some Kodak Gold and load it up. Sometimes small compacts seem to fare quite well and I'll risk a roll of a more expensive film where I might use something like Kentmere for the first roll through a cleaned up SLR. 

The μ travelled with me on a trip to Lincolnshire and there was probably a little too much eagerness to get through the film and see what we had got; if anything.  Crops ripening in huge open fields; not always the most photogenic of landscapes, but with those big skies, Lincolnshire gets some lovely lighting conditions.  Now the little mju wasn’t going to make the finest landscape camera, but it did okay. 

The mju on Kodak Gold 200

The Olympus μ is small, in fact for 35mm, it’s very small.  It will genuinely go in an outdoor jacket pocket without feeling bulky.  So carrying it started to become a habit.  The μ was going with me even to the shops.  Frankly I take a camera to the shops anyway, but the mju was just so much easier.  I could also slip it into already heavily laden bag of digital gear and not notice the difference.

More on Kodak Gold 200
 

The Olympus μ’s 35mm f3.5 lens seems a pretty good and the camera does just about everything for you.  Flash is on and set to auto as default as soon as the cover is opened. For what I want to do, this generally means deselecting flash before taking a shot.  There are three flash modes: auto, auto-S and fill in.  The flash off selection is after auto and auto-S, so a couple of button presses to get to where you want to be.  This is of course a trivial matter and taken all round, the μ is a very small, yet very capable compact camera. Given the size of the mju, it works well where being discrete is a plus, provided you remember to de-select that flash.

The mju on Ilford HP5
 

So, could I bear to part with a genuinely pocket sized point and shoot?  Reasoning I had already exceeded the sensible number of cameras limit, I took images of the μ for the big auction web site. A week or so later I found somehow I hadn’t listed it.  I’d do it the following weekend.  That came and went too. Finally I told myself it's not really my sort of camera and I committed.  It fetched a good price, but almost immediately I felt some regret.  What if some situation came up whereby I needed a really small film camera? Better start looking for something similar.

The mju on Ilford HP5
 


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