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[OM] OM-2 auto exposure; quirky behavior; MD badge; misadjusted pentapri

Subject: [OM] OM-2 auto exposure; quirky behavior; MD badge; misadjusted pentaprism; multicoating
From: William Sommerwerck <williams@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 05:54:34 -0700
The OM-2 (which I owned) would set correct exposure even if the switch
were off. That is, the camera turned itself on when you released the
shutter. The rationale was that this eliminated any chance of missing a
shot because you the meter was turned off.

To put it another way... the OM-2 _does not_ switch to manual shutter
speeds when the meter is off.


This business about the meter needle "jerking" downwards at random times
seems to be a common problem. My OM-2 suffered from it, but because the
body was bought in Bermuda, I had no US warranty and never fixed it. It
didn't seem to affect the camera's auto-exposure (over 15 years!), but
it sure was irritating.

The "creeping" self-timer also seems to be normal.


The MD badge means that the camera is motor-drive ready. (The earliest
OMs did not accept a motor drive.) It does _not_ mean that the camera
came with a motor drive. The drive has always been an optional extra.


One of the reasons OMs are so compact is that the bottom of the
pentaprism is convex, to form a condenser (which would otherwise have to
be a separate component). If smashing something into the top of the
camera also dented the top of the frame, I assume the pentaprism would
then sit slightly lower and therefore closer to the lens, producing the
"can't get to infinity" problem the current owner sees. Of course, this
sort of problem _should_ have been very obvious to someone repairing the
camera.

My opinion is that the previous owner knew about this problem and
decided it would cost too much to fix.


All the multicoated Zuikos I've seen have green reflections. If they're
another color, the lens probably isn't multicoated. I recently bought an
Infinity Stylus Zoom 80 Wide DLX and (surprisingly) it isn't
multicoated. (Nor is my IS-10.) The reflections are purple, and
more-intense than those from multicoated lenses.

It's rather odd to design a camera with automatic fill-in flash, then
put a complex lens on it that isn't mutlicoated. Of course, Olympus
might have tested the designs to confim they didn't suffer from
excessive flare and decided to single-coat them as a cost-saving
measure.

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