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Re: [OM] how would you design *YOUR* OM-X?

Subject: Re: [OM] how would you design *YOUR* OM-X?
From: "Lee Penzias" <l_penzias@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 01:33:17 -0500
Moose,

Yes, product developement and tuning often run along as production proceeds. I suspect that often when a part for something goes from bad to good to bad, the latter is probably due to production/assembly deadlines - perhaps lack of raw materials - or the failing of delievery of contract supplied parts at the time. I'd be surprized (but not shocked) if Olympus had built the OM's entirely in their own plants.

I have a Canon A-1 that I will probably trade in for an OM-2 in the near future. I like the Canon (and their lenses are very very good) but the OM's are so handy, of great overall quality and design - and two cameras using the same lenses simplifies things greatly.

I shall probably add another OM-1 for good measure.

Cheers,
Lee

----Original Message Follows----
From: dreammoose <dreammoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [OM] how would you design *YOUR* OM-X?

Lee Penzias wrote:

Moose,

Good question; I might add that I have not had mine anywhere near long enough to break anything (..yet). But I was only really leaving open the possibility of using what might be better materials for individual parts and fine tuning. I don't know whether the shutter could be coaxed up to 2K and still be of the mechanical variety. Personally, from a user point of view, I like mine like it is :)

The OM-3 has 1/2000 mechanical shutter speed, spot metering and adjustable diopter, three of the things people have mentioned they would add to the OM-1 as OM-Z. Yet people went right on buying OM-1ns, very few OM-3s were sold and it was quickly discontinued, so I guess a lot of people agree with you that the '1' is pretty fine as it is. Of course, the lack of self timer and shutter/aperture prefire pretty much shot the OM-3 in the foot as a fully functional camera for those who do many kind of photography.

My idea of "product developement" would be to ask those who fix 'em what breaks first and most often, why and how. Then make minor adjustments accordingly in materials and fine tuning design details (I wish they did this with cars too) as opposed to practically scrapping and replacing it with something different every couple of years.

Some of that 'fine tuning' went on during the lengthy production. There were a lot of detail changes over all those years. John H. wrote about how some parts even got worse, then better again, with the example of a gear that went plastic, then back to brass.

I use OM-1s rather seldom, mostly for backup. I replaced a Nik*n Ftn with my first OM-1 and really appreciated all it's design virtues, esp. the size and weight, but I really fell in love with Olys with the OM-2n I bought a little later. I feel Auto Mode and TTL flash let me get pictures I would miss with a manual exposure camera and do casual shooting more easily, yet there are other photographic tasks more easily accomplished in Manual. So my OM-Z would be an OM-4T with matrix metering (maybe a choice, like the OM-PC?) for the Auto Mode, a Program Mode, a second self timer mode of 3-4 secs. just for mirror/aperture prefire settle time and an external connection for battery power to keep the viewfinder illuminated continuously when needed. A real 'off' switch for the meter would be nice, but nowhere near as important as the other things. Add a full 24x36mm sensor digital back option, and it becomes my OM-X (or 'D'?) too.




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