JOEL BLACKWOOD wrote:
> I appreciate the warm responses I've received from my first round of
> questions. You've really peaked my interest in Oly's, and I think I've
> narrowed my choices down to some model of OM-1 or OM-2.
Yes, many even prefer those to the 3's and 4's.
> Could someone tell me the EV ranges for the meters used on 1's
> and 2's? I tend to shoot available light, long exposure, stopped down
> quite a bit and it's always nice to keep the meter going.
>From the original manuals:
OM1 : EV 2 - EV 17 ("ASA 100 with f1.4 standard lens")
OM2n : EV 1.5 - EV 17 ("ASA 100 with f1.2 standard lens")
I don't know whether the f-stop proviso means the meter is less
accurate with slower lenses. At f16 EV 2 works out to 63.4
seconds at ISO 100 or 4 minutes at ISO 25. I have found the
accuracy to be good - I often shoot at 1/2 second manually, and
have shot down to 30 seconds on auto.
The OM2N will automatically expose up to 2 minutes (also
stated in the manual, and regardless of film speed). The
Achilles heel is that you need to guess exposure beforehand
in order to dial in the correction for reciprocity failure.
You can't read out "2 minutes" anywhere in the viewfinder.
Of course the guess only needs to be within an order of
magnitude: dial in +1 and it turns 20s to 40s and 60s to 120s.
You can't have more than +1 stop compensation with ISO 25,
but you can have +2 with anything faster; this appears
to be a mechanical limitation of the speed dial. (I don't
know whether the 4Ti also has this problem. It shouldn't at
that price.)
You can't set or read in the viewfinder speeds longer than
1s. To meter these manually, open up and do the arithmetic
in your head. This is one instance in which a digital
display would be superior to the swinging needle.
One other thing: you can't see the swing needle at night.
If you prefer available light to flash, you might go for the
OM1. Good examples of that will be easier and cheaper to
find than equivalent OM2N's, and you can use an ordinary auto
flash rather than the expensive Olympus flashes.
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|