In a message dated 9/17/98 3:56:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
swright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
<< I just purchased an OM-2s that seems to have something peculiar going on
with the meter. I think. I really could use some input from people who
have used the OM-2s, and I did not get a manual with it. I am VERY new to
photography, but I have used my OM-1n successfuly - I can use the meter to
take good pictures.
In any case, I beleive the meter, and the resulting shutter speed are not
in agreement with each other. For an example, I set the camera to ISO/ASA
100, then put my f/1.8 50mm lense on it. With it in 'AUTO' mode, I pointed
to a wall that is pretty uniformly lit, but certainly would be considered
dark for 100 film. The meter reads 1/125 which seems wrong, but when I
take the picture, the shutter seems to stay open for a seconds or so -
which seems to be correct given the lighting. The dissagreement seems to
be consistant. When I move to a darker wall, the meter does go down, but
then the shutter stays open longer.>>
Be careful here. When the OM-2S is in auto mode, it *begins* metering at the
instant the shutter 1st curtain opens, then closes the 2nd curtain as soon as
it decides enough light has reached the film. It does this by reading the
light reflected off of the shutter curtain AND THE FILM. If there is no film
in the camera it reads the pressure plate, which obviously doesn't reflect
light as well as film, so gives a longer exposure, which will not agree with
what you saw in the finder display before you pressed the shutter button. This
sounds like what was happening during your "wall" test
<<Today, I actually took a test roll of 100 film, outside, and the meter was
trying to tell me that I was over-exposed with settings that seemed like
they should have been ok. I ended up stoping the lenses down to get the
meter from bitching to me - to f/11 or f/16! This SEEMED wrong compared to
what I would normally do for my OM-1n. The resulting pictures turned out
fine though. My only guess is that the exposure time was longer than what
was metered, but correct given that I stopped the lense down. >>
Assuming you're still in auto (and not program mode) mode, stopping down the
lens would not have affected the total exposure (it would have resulted in a
longer exposure commensurate with the amount the lens was stopped down). So it
sounds like the meter is working OK, although I'm not sure why the displayed
meter reading appears to be off.
If you're not in auto mode, but program mode, then the story is completely
different. What happens here is the metering system selects an aperture based
on a built-in program. It can only select an aperture as larger or larger than
what you have set on the lens. In most cases you want the lens stopped all the
way down (f/16 on the 50/1.8). This allows the camera to select any aperture
between f/1.8 and f/16). This sounds like it might be what was happening
during your "film" test.
Finally, if you're in manual mode, don't forget that you have a spot meter,
not center weighted.
I hope this helps. I have the OM-2S manuals, which I hope to scan in soon for
submission to Greg's documentation archive.
Paul Schings
Coventry, RI
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