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[OM] How and when did you get into OM?

Subject: [OM] How and when did you get into OM?
From: Kelton Rhoads <krho@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 10:24:13 -0800
The stories of how many of you got into OM are eerily similar to mine, 
especially John's (Pandionhalietius). I was an 8th grader who, like John, 
was chasing critters (photographing mainly bird's nests, to be more 
accurate) climbing trees with a Leica IIIc, given to me by my dentist, of 
all things. I experienced only moderate success as a nature photographer 
with the Leica and the 5cm 3.5 Elmar lens. But I learned a lot about 
photography and film developing in the process. I read so many books on 
photography that I started complaining to my parents I could learn 
nothing from reading additional books. The editor of our 8th grade 
yearbook, Kim, a girl I liked a bit too much, proudly and arrogantly shot 
with a Minolta SRT-101 (the only grade school kid with a real camera), 
and I thought it was all but inevitable that when I got my first modern 
camera, it would also be a Minolta, perhaps the 201, just to cheese Kim. 
It was, at least, smaller than the oversized Nikons of the day. Then, 
(again like John,) I became aware of the new Olympus system around 1975, 
and the marketing literature captured me--that, and the jewel-like, very 
"un-Minolta" look and feel of the camera. My first major purchase in my 
life was an Olympus OM1-MD, purchased through a missionary friend who 
(again, like John!) was in Hong Kong. This started a rift with Kim that 
never fully healed. I ordered the OM1 with the 50mm f/1.4, an extravagant 
expenditure, but I was fed up with slow normal lenses (recall the Elmar) 
and, even more extravagantly, the amazing 75-150 zoom! My parents, not 
wanting the investment to go to waste, funded me at a 2-day Nikon school, 
which was in retrospect little more than an extended marketing assault by 
the Nikon salespeople. (I was too young at the time to realize Nikon 
school was more for selling Nikon gear than for teaching the basics of 
photography, and my faith in the OM was badly shaken for awhile--mainly 
because the OM didn't do double exposures as easily as did the Nikons. 
Like I ever needed to make double exposures.) For two years the OM kit 
(with a Vivitar 280-something strobe) put me as "the" photographer of my 
high school (working for, as luck would have it, Kim, who was the high 
school yearbook editor for years running). I added a 24mm f/2.8 in my 
Junior year of high school, in time for a European vacation (with which 
to photograph cathedrals). Years later, after college, I would sell all 
my OM gear in a day, for a song, having seen "the future" in an early 
Pentax (I think) autofocus camera, which I was actually smart enough not 
to buy. So my mid-life interest in Olympus is really atonement for the 
outrage of foolishness I committed in selling my original gear. At least 
I've repurchased the 50 and the 24, and replaced the chrome OM1 with a 
minty black OM1N, which was "to die for" in 1977. Kim always held the 
purchase of an OM against me, but her sister followed suit and also 
purchased an OM, having fallen in love with mine. 

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