OK, I didn't want to lengthen myh intro by explaining how I got
everything, so I'll do it now. I got my first OM-2n about a year and a
half ago from a friend. He was the host of a show I worked on at the
local cable company's local origination channel. Bob was also a
professor at the local county college who taught the photography
classes. He gave me the OM-2n because my son neede a camera for art
school. At the same time, my son bought a new camera. Bob let me keep
the Olympus since he had more cameras than he knew what to do with and
because the camera's flash switch was bad. I wasn't worried about
it-the price was too good to pass up-free!
I have been looking for lenses for the OM-2n since I got it, but was
never satisified with either the quality of the lenses I could afford.
The good lenses were out of my reach. However, I kept haunting the
camera stores that had the best selection of used equipment hoping I'd
luck out. About a week and a half ago, I stopped in to one of those
stores, Rand's Camera in Silverton, NJ. As usual, the lenses they had
were underwhelming. However, they had teo cameras on the shelf... an
OM-1 and an OM-2n. The 2n was going for $75 as it was missing the
rewind crank (though the knob is still there.) I used that camera to
look at the lenses, as I had left my 2n at home. Then I noticed, for
the umpteenth time, a few Olympus boxes sitting on the bottom shelf of
the used gear section. I asked to see what they were, and soon I was
looking at an early model Motor Drive 1 with a M.15V Ni-Cd Control Pack
2 and the charger for the Ni-Cd pack. I asked what they wanted for the
motor drive set and was told $150 for all three items. I asked them to
hold the motor drive overnight until I talked it over with my wife. I
also asked them to charge up the battery pack to see if it would hold a
charge. When I came back the next day, everything worked as advertised,
so I bought the camera and the motor drive.
Needing lenses for the pair of cameras, I started watching eBay. I
found that Henry's Camera store, in Toronto, was selling some new
Vivitar 80-200mm/f2.8 zoom lenses that they had found in thier
warehouse. They were auctioning them off one at a time, with a minimum
bid of $49.90 and a "Buy it now" price of $74.90. I watched one that no
one had bid on until the last hour of the auction, then put in a bid.
No one else bid on the lens, so I got it for $49.90.
Next, I found a private party who was selling a Vivitar 28mm/f2.8 wode
angle lens on eBay. His starting bid was $10. Again, I watched the
auction until the last hour. No one else bid on the lens. I put in a
bid with a $25 maximum. Someone else started bidding against me, but
his max was only $15, so I got that lens for $15.50!
Finally, I needed a new shoe 4, as the second 2n didn't have one and I
can't find the one on my older 2n. I found a camera store in San
Antonio that had a new shoe 4, in the box, for $31.50 on "Buy it Now",
with a $3.50 S&H cost. I immediately grabbed it.
So you see, that is how I "acquired" my Olympus camera kit. I think I
did pretty well with everything.
Ed Senior
Timpe, Jim wrote:
'acquired' via any unusual means?
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