Here's a snippet of crud from the 35mm newsgroup that is in the thread
"mourning Minolta"
Crud Beginnith
Despite the technological advances Olympus made (they were the only
company besides Leitz to engineer a damped mirror movement, for which
reason the Leicaflexes needed no mirror lock-up), its entry into the
SLR fray was ultimately doomed. The cameras simply came to the party
too late, about 10 years after even Leica's belated entry. The fact is
that N*kon owned the pro SLR marketplace, and Olympus simply did not
have a pro camera. Pros did not need smaller SLR's (quite the
contrary!) and OM-1's were no match for N*kons or Leicaflexes in
durability. The Olympus lens line contained some lenses that were so
small that men (the primary buyers of SLR's) had trouble handing them.
I know I dropped an Olympus lens at least once while demonstrating it!
The reduced size of the lenses was accomplished by sacrificing strength
and durability: you could make an Olymus lens bind easily by squeezing
the focussing ring, something that was more difficult to do with a
Nikkor and all but impossible to do with a Leica reflex lens.
I prefer the size of Leicaflex SL or SL2 camera to the bulky Nikon F or
the diminutive OM-1.
Crud endith
*********
I have to admit, the only 35mm SLR I've ever owned has been OM gear. As
such I don't have the experience to say how strong the bodies were compared
to the competition. I bought my OM-1 in 1977 because it WAS SMALL. I have
normal hands (at the last time I took a peek I was of the male gender) and I
didn't have a problem with handling Zuiko lenses. And I does anyone have an
idea of what strength you need to squeeze a focusing ring to make it bind?
There are a few things that were dumb in the OM line in my opinion:
1. The motor drive cover on the OM1 and OM2 is a joke.
2. The flimsy hot shoe.
3. As a right handed fellow, would have liked the film speed (and thus the
compensation dial) on the left hand side of the camera on the OM2. You
southpaws can tell me otherwise.
4. Would have been nice to have the Fstop indicated in the viewfinder with
the shutter speed, although I admit that I would not like to sacrifice the
size of the viewfinder to get it.
Offset those 4 peeves with a whole lot that Olympus got right and I say I
chose correctly way back when.
Jay
Hand me my costume
Please won't you pass me my mask
I have appointments I must keep with my past.
Bill Nelson - Beauty Secrets
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