Have I missed an entry on this thread, or has anyone mentioned the fact that
the preponderance of early SLRs were waist-level finder devices, which would
put the shutter speed dial on the top of the camera a logical location,
regardless of where internally the actual mechanism was. The very first
Edixa reflex that I inherited from my dad had this... a ground glass
waist-level finder with a fold up magnifier. I took some remarkable shots
with that old stuff. In the ignorance of my youth, and over exuberance to
acquire things Olympus, I traded that old camera to a Camera shop owner in
downtown Misawa Japan some 24 years ago, and today couldn't even tell you
what it was I traded it in for.
Pining away the day,
Jim Timpe
Fluke Worldwide Support Center
1420 75th St. SW
Everett, WA 98203
1.800.753.5853 ext 3321
-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Maynard [mailto:jmaynard@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2000 8:12 AM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OM] OM Cameras and Shutter rings.
On Thu, Oct 19, 2000 at 08:41:15AM -0400, John Hermanson
wrote:
> The way I understand it, the original OM bodies were meant
to be cradled
> with the left hand. Right hand was responsible for
winding and firing.
> Left hand controlled focus, f stop and shutter speed.
All this could be
> done without taking the camera away from your eye to see
what you were
> setting. If the user was really familiar with his/her OM,
it didn't matter
> that there was no vf ss / f stop information.
This is the way I was taught to hold a 35 SLR, as well: the
left hand
supports the weight, with the fingers adjusting focus,
aperture, and zoom,
and the right concentrates on squeezing the shutter and
advancing the film.
With the elbows tucked into the body, the result is a solid
platform that
minimizes camera shake as much as is possible while
handholding, and is
reasonably comfortable to maintain over long periods of
time. To me, the
OM-1's shutter speed control merely enhances the technique,
since the right
hand need never move off of its position on the side of the
body. (My
fingers aren't quite long enough to roll most top-mounted
shutter speed
controls without coming off the side of the body.)
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