Olympus OM101

 I have had steady stream of offers of film cameras thanks to my blog and occasionally my curiosity gets the better of me and I accept gifts that make me wonder why nobody else wanted the camera. One such gift was from a dear chum of many years who offered me not one, but two Olympus OM-101 "Power Focus" cameras that were gathering dust. Having never seen one out in the wild I asked him if I could have a look whilst we put the world to rights over a coffee. My friend delivered the cameras on a bright summer day and the deed was done. Curiosity won the day and he wasn't taking them home. 

The camera uses the OM mount and Olympus built lenses that weren't true autofocus lenses. They were called "Power Focus". There's a wheel on the back of the camera, much like the selector wheels on every DSLR and 90's film cameras and the focusing motor is built into the camera. You move the wheel left or right and it adjusts the focus on the lens. Sounds good, right? The big problem with the lenses is you cannot use them manually. Olympus also said we could use all our OM mount Zuiko lenses on the camera in aperture priority mode without any trouble. For the purposes of this first look I went into this with the viewpoint of a beginner and used full auto.

"How does it handle?"

I found the camera to be very easy to use.  Everything you need to operate the camera is on the camera body and operated with either an index finger or your thumbs. There is a selector wheel on the top where you choose between fully auto P mode, aperture priority and manual operation. It's literally a point and shoot with the "Power Focus" operated by the wheel on the back of the camera. Loading the film is easy too, just insert the film cassette, pull the leader to the red mark on the take up side and close the back. It winds the film on automatically to the right starting point. It also uses DX coding and sets the iso for you too.

If you want to try one it's not a bad camera and does allow you to use any OM mount lenses you may have in your collection, but does that defeat the object of the camera being one that a beginner could use as a point and shoot with little or no training? It certainly gives you more options as the Power Focus lens range is unsurprisingly not very well populated. Mine consists of a 50mm f2 PF and a 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 PF zoom and I'm told they were the only two lenses produced specifically for this camera. You can pick them up dirt cheap on the bay of evil or your favourite used camera retailer.

"What about the photo's?"

The camera honestly surprised me with the quality of the photo's from my first roll of Kentmere 400 film I shot with it. Being an Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 user I really should have known Olympus would have ensured this camera was capable of producing decent well exposed photographs, even on a horrid day such as the one I had. That's probably my inner skepticism coming to the fore with a camera I hadn't used before and the uncertain reputation of the camera. It got a bum rap when it first appeared and was only sold between 1988 and 1991. 

Have I given this camera a true test of our capabilities together? I went at this with a lot of questions and used the camera as a beginner would, on full auto. My next roll and indeed a future blog will be about how I get on with the camera in full manual mode, or at least as manual its native "Power Focus" lenses allow. I will use the 35-70mm zoom and see how that performs and then use my trusty Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 and see what happens.

Given the awful daylight I had shot my film in, I decided to develop my roll of Kentmere 400 in Kodak HC-110 dilution E 1+47 for 9 minutes at 20 celcius and hung them to dry overnight. I scanned the film with my trusty Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and removed any dust spots and scratches with Affinity Photo 2.

This wont be the last you see of this camera as my curiosity is far from satisfied. I want to know more about it and given my history of wanting an OM-1 from childhood, I reckon the OM101 deserves a thorough long term review. Here's a few photos I shot on Kentmere 400 with my Olympus OM101 and 50mm f/2 PF lens. As always I have put these photos and more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I have also included a link to the Camera Go Camera review of the Olympus OM101 camera that may interest you. I hope you enjoy them.

Olympus OM101
Camera Go Camera - Olympus OM-101/OM-88