on 7/10/01 12:20 AM, William Green at wrgreen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Was anyone on the list shopping for an SLR in
> the early to mid-70s? Can you remember what was on your list? I wish I could
> say I was into OM then, but the truth is I was more likely to be in the
> market for the latest copy of the Beano and a quarter of Cola Cubes...
> Regards
> Will
I was getting into photography in college, wanting to learn, somehow, to be
a famous photojournalist or National Geographic photographer. I considered
also a Canon F1 or Nikon, but there were two barriers... higher cost and
they were big and heavy. The small size of the OM-1 was my first attraction,
as I had been using my Leica IIIg, but got to thinking I wanted a modern
camera with a meter (and I wanted to spare my Leica any unfortunate hard
knocks). Nikon was what all the 'serious' photo students had, but the F2
weighed about a pound more than the OM-1 and looked to be about 50% bigger.
The cost of my first OM-1, 24/2.8, 50/1.4, and 75-150/4.0 wasn't all that
much less than Nikon, about 20 0.000000e+00ss if I recall, so size was the real
decisive element. I would have bought Leica M if I had 5X to spend... but I
didn't then and I don't now... I think Olympus gear has aged much better
than Nikon, because it was a better designed system, then and now. If
Olympus did a modern AF AE A-everything system on the scale of the OM series
now (OM-6?) they would be serious competition for Canon EOS and Nikon's
current stuff, which is still too big and heavy.
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-1's, -2's, -4's, (no -3's yet) and no OM-oney...
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