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Old 11-02-2008, 02:16 PM
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Suzy_A
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Fremantle
Posts: 237
I've got an OM1n, OM2n and OM10 plus several lenses. On hollidaze, I usually took the OM2n - it basically does (almost) everything the OM1n did, but with auto exposure which makes it a lot easier and quicker.

Anyway, on holiday in Europe, I usually used 400 ASA in winter and 200 ASA in summer. In autumn and spring, usually either will do.

As for lenses, I have a 28 f2.8, (did have - stolen), a 50 f1.4, 135 f2.8 and a 28 - 80 f2.8 zoom. The zoom I called my 'tourist lens' as it was reasonably fast, covered a good range and basically was all that I usually needed. After carrying around a huge (5 kg+) camera bag with heaps of lenses and gear, I finally ended up just carrying around the camera, zoom and the 50 f1.4 for low light shots, a mini-tripod and a T20 flash.

Unfortunately, good zooms for Olympii are very hard to come by and most 1980's - 1990's zooms are pretty crappy. I can certainly notice the difference in image quality between the zoom and the fixed focal length lenses. I've now gone Canon digital, and for the tourist shots I use a Canon 17 - 85 zoom, but for the good shots I use a fixed focal length lens as the 17 - 85 is still not that great. (I should have blown the budget and got a L series zoom or at least the 17 - 55 f2.8 zoom).

If you look hard on eBay, you might find a reasonable zoom - one of the later Olympii or a late model Sigma or Tamron etc. The earlier ones were pretty crappy.

As for the battery and metering, in my OM1n, I found that you can use the zinc-air hearing aid batteries. The mercury batteries were ... 1.3 volts??? or whatever and the silver etc batteries were all too high voltage and give incorrect meter readings. However the zinc-air batteries are ... 1.35 V?? and the meter reading is only slightly high - maybe 1/4 - 1/3 stop. The batteries only last about 6 months (they have high self-discharge) but otherwise work fine. The zinc-airs are slightly smaller, so I just made up a small spacer with a bit of plastic.

You also need to remember the 'f16 rule' - in bright sunlight, set the aperture to f16 and the shutter speed is the same as the ASA'. So in bright sun, if your'e using 200 ASA, then f16 and 1/200 (or 1/250) sec is about right. Or some variation of this - f11 and 1/500, or f8 and 1/1000 or f22 and 1/125 etc. And then if it's cloudy, make an allowance for that...
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