12 Aug 2010

WhooHoo! New Camera!

As some of you may know, I really like the Olympus Trip 35, hey I even started a separate blog just for that little wonder of a camera! So when I came across a close relative of the Trip, I jumped at the opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. It is my first range finder camera and is the fantastic but scarce Olympus 35 DC, a fully automatic camera with manual focusing. (Isn't that a contradiction of terms?)


Like all range finder cameras the focusing is very easy and accurate, and the shutter is just amazingly quiet. The shutter speed and aperture is taken care of very effectively by the camera and leaves you free to just concentrate on getting the picture,


As with the Olympus Trip 35 it sports a Zuiko lens, but this one goes all the way open to f1.7! Yeah, now I can shoot in the dark! And if you look at the pics below you can see that the lens is every bit as sharp as the Trip. The main thing I  like about this camera is that the focussing is a lot more accurate than the Trip, but then it also becomes a little slower to use and shooting "from the hip" isn't quite as easy either.






All these photos were taken on expired but frozen for years Kodak Ektachrome 64 slide film and scanned on my CanoScan 5600F scanner. The only thing I did was correct a slight blue cast, resize and brand before posting. No sharpening required, boy this thing is sharp!

If you can get one grab it, as far as I can see there were far fewer of these manufactured than the Trip 35, so they might be harder to find.

Some links featuring the Olympus 35DC:
Photo.net
Flickr
emuu.net
Camerapedia

2 comments:

  1. These are 'cracking' little cameras, with a great lens, sharper than the Trip, but as you say, the focussing can make it a little slower for 'grab shots'. I have the 35 SP which I bought on eBay a couple of years ago, it has a spot metering facility, the only rangefinder, short of a Leica, that had it in those days. There is a shot of it on my sidebar, it looks pretty much like yours. I only use it for mono and get the films processed through a local camera shop. Nice to see the use of film slowly spreading. Enjoy the little beauty!

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  2. Congratulations for your beautiful baby. It IS really a DC- "Deluxe and Compact". All of your images you took with Olympus 35DC plus Zuiko 40mm F1.7 is amazing!!!

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