On 06 May 2010, at 3:07 PM, John Hermanson wrote:
> ONE quirk of this 3Ti. I had to replace the diopter adjustment knob,
> and had to use one that does not have the white dot on it. Many /
> most
> new replacement parts for the 3Ti are now NLA.
John, you need to halve your price because of this! What outrage!
:-)
No, really, I doubt if anybody would have ever noticed had you not
mentioned it John. To add to Ken's mentioning of "keeping it in the
family",
it's also so good to "buy in the family".
I must admit, I have been very very tempted to buy this new-in-box,
with all documentation
and accessories 3Ti on the 'bay for $2000 (item #250622973793, ends
May 7, 2010). This
was before John listed his (er... soon to be mine...) example.
Nice as a 100% original, new body in box, with all correct accessories
body would
be (even at $600 more expensive) - there is something much more
special about buying
it from a knowledgeable, passionate, super-honest source that had also
just given it
a service. Somebody in this "family" of geeks that are excited by a
range of small
35mm film cameras.
10-15 years is not such a long time, but I am sure a body sitting in a
box that long wouldn't
actually operate nearly as nicely as a freshly tuned-up one. Also, if
my plans work out,
I may be subjecting it to some extreme (Arctic) cold in the next year
or so, and I
figured a tuned 3Ti stands a much better chance.
John, you have made me happier than a new-in-box one could ever have,
since I have
seen what a mechanical body is like after it's passed through your hands
(I bought Jim Couch's Black-lizard-skin OM-1, serviced by you in 2007,
silky-smooth)
Ken... Ken... Ken... (Norton, in case anybody is wondering).
I understand you have often been pressured or "conditioned" by this
list into
exercising restraint when writing about the 3Ti.
Well dude, I am sure you will now have a fellow fanatic (who will have
difficulty in shutting up)
on your side, preaching alongside you, if the 3Ti is even half of what
it's cracked up to be :-)
Since I love my OM-1(s) so much, one may ask why am I crazy enough to
spend good money on an
OM-3Ti? Up until fairly recently, I have been viewing 35mm as merely a
toy format, something I
originally took up to help me with my film technique, to be applied to
medium format.
I have come to realise that it's quite unlikely for me to regularly
make darkroom prints larger
than 12x16in - it's my "sweet spot". After making a couple of prints
(some of them shot on Pan F,
with the 90/2.0 Macro and 250/2.0) at that size, I have realised that
at typical viewing distance,
it's very hard to distinguish between 35mm and medium format. Such a
print made from a 6x7cm negative
can almost be examined under a microscope, whereas 35mm is clearly
becoming stretched, requiring careful
technique, but it's close enough on fine-grained film.
So, I hate to admit it, but for "daily use" 35mm has won. And there
will be no digital camera in my near
future, that's just not the direction this hobby of mine has taken.
And quite simply, I've taken 10x as
many "keepers" with my OM egar, as what I have with my medium format
gear (wonderful beasts as they are).
So for travel / general use, I have settled on my OM kit, and the
Linhof 6x17cm for occasional
really spectacular, wide images (of which I shoot about 1 per month :-).
As I will so seriously be using the OM system for the foreseeable
future, I may as well spend what one
could spend on a silly little Micro FourThirds body and two lenses,
and get me the "best" OM body for
my needs.
This 3Ti will be in serious use, not at all in a cabinet. It's perhaps
just as well I didn't prevent
a "cabinet collector" / "investment buyer" (yes, a 3Ti is clearly an
appreciating investment) from
buying the new-in-box eBay sample, which will be worth $3000 or $4000
in another decade I am sure.
Lastly, with a 3Ti, there will be no rangefinder camera in my future
(something I have been thinking about).
Even though they have so many truly appealing aspects, my favourite
lenses (24mm F2, 90mm F2, 250mm F2),
and the ways in which I use them, have no equivalent in rangefinder-
land.
In fact, I would have been happy just continuing to use the marvelous
OM-1, but the 3Ti has a couple
of features that I feel will improve my image-making process. And it's
so darn sexy!
Anyway, what a bunch of random ramblings... but I guess this is the
right list for that sort of thing.
all the best to y'all, from an (extremely) rainy South Africa
Dawid
--
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