>Given the news that the OM-2000 appears to be temporarily or
>permanently unavailable (B&H no longer lists it), what are you
>advising students who want to buy their first "real camera"?
>
Question I get asked a lot. They need a fully manual camera - no auto at
all. I suggest an orphan line with decent lenses - Konica T's, Spotmatics
and Minolta SRT's can be had for peanuts and good lenses are available
very, very cheap. A student of mine is using a Minolta SRT101X with 45/2 I
found her for US$50 and it's perfect. Nikkormats and OM1's are good but a
bit more expensive, as are the lenses. Pentax K1000's got overpriced as
schools recommended them and the later ones are Chinese built and not so
reliable. I've seen a student get through senior high and well into her
second year of photography college with just a Nikkormat FT3 and 50/1.4 and
her images are wonderful. She just lashed out on a 135mm! Fancy flashes,
matrix metering, fast lenses, etc. can wait.
>For the moment, I'm looking at the Nikon FM10, FM2 and FM3 being
>essentially equivalent with the OM10, OM1, and OM2, and I figure if
>Oly wasn't available, I'd probably go Nikon (that was my 2nd choice
>when I got into photography in the 70s). Is there any reason those
>three bodies wouldn't be good starters for serious students?
FM10 is probably too fragile and auto. FM2/3 are perfect but pricey (FM3a
is US$800 here - I could buy 4-6 good student cameras with lenses for
that!) FM3 is not an OM2 equivalent AFAIK - it has no auto does it? More
like an OM3 equivalent? A good Nikkormat FT3 or early K1000 is a good
choice.
>
>Please forgive the heresy.
>B.B. Bean
To the stake with you!
AndrewF
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