The grip attachment is an interesting little bugger. The only thing it
provides is a tiny bit of lip for holding onto the camera when it is being
carried in a ready position by the right hand. When actually shooting, it
adds a little something, but doesn't really make much of a difference on or
off. When carried by the right hand, this attachment allows the camera to
be held with the thumb and middle finger. Without the attachment, you need
to squeeze a little harder and incorporate most of the fingers to keep from
dropping the camera.
This is entirely different than when a winder or motordrive is attached to
the camera. In this case, most of the hand and palm is used to hold the
camera. These power attachments do have one distinct advantage, though.
When you have the camera hanging down at your side, you can actually relax
your finger and literally let it dangle from your fingertips. The winders
actually do this a little better than the motordrives.
Yesterday, for breakfast, I met with a couple other film photographers in
town who happen to shoot with Canon FD equipment. The one had an F1 with
this big motordrive attached. Honestly, I wonder how it would fit in a
compact car. Big, heavy and simply astonishing how uncomfortable to hold it
was. The grip was so massive that my hands couldn't hang on very well. 12
stinking batteries inside it! The other guy had some AE1(program) bodies
with the drives attached to them. 8 batteries inside of them. I did manage
to bring the OM-3Ti as well as an OM-4T. The OM-4T was equipped with the
MD2. I am SOOOOO thankful that I chose Olympus 26 years ago.
Back to the grip...
The usefulness of the grip depends a lot on the lens attached to the
camera. I actually prefer the OM body to be gripless if I'm using my
24/2.8, 35/2.8, 50/1.4 or 100/2.8. But if the 35-80/2.8 or 100/2 is
attached, the grip makes a lot of difference. Asking the question 'why?"
does reveal a dramatic change in how a camera is held based on weight and
design of the lens. The older and shorter lenses really balance correctly
with the left hand cradling the lens and body. Thumb and middle finger land
on the focus ring, index finger landing on the aperture ring. It is very
very natural for me to then carry and hold the camera with the left hand
and when I bring the camera up to the eye, my right hand will then join the
action and provide guiding, shutter-release and film-advance duties. With
these lenses, the camera body itself is firmly planted in the upturned palm
of the left hand.
The 100/2 and 35-80/2.8 present a totally different situation, though. The
CG is shifted so far forward that the camera ends up landing in the heal of
the hand and the fingers are farther forward of the camera body. In the
case of the 35-80/2.8, the rings are reversed position with the aperture
next to the lens mount, the zoom ring in the middle and the focus ring
farther forward. Because the CG shift, the fingers are now load-bearing.
Using a 35-80/2.8 on a driveless OM body is fatiguing after a while. I can
carry and shoot an OM with 35/2.8 all day, but the 35-80/2.8 requires some
assistance.
When you add a winder or drive to the right side of the camera, the
right-hand becomes load-bearing. If it provides enough height, the camera
will wedge in nicely into the heal of the hand and you get a lot of
stability and load-capacity. This is one reason why the E-1 with
battery-grip is so comfortable to hold. A motordrive or winder equipped OM
body has the distinct advantage over many other systems by still allowing
you to place the body into an upturned left hand with the fingers falling
naturally to the rings. If the attachment height is too tall, you can't
cradle the body at all and instead the left hand has to go palm down with
the fingers wrapping over the top of the lens. The E-1 with battery-grip is
at the absolute limit of size to allow for upturned palm holding. The
aforementioned F1 with MF motordrive is impossible as the lens looks to be
at least three inches away from the bottom. Besides, with as much bulk and
weight of that rig, I don't know how anybody could handhold it anyway. It
took stronger men than me, that's for sure.
But the problem with adding a winder or motordrive to the OM body is that
it completely alters the weight, size and holding shape of the camera. On
OM body with MD2 and 35-80/2.8 is a heavy rig and not necessarily something
that you want to take an a walk. The little grip attachment for the OM body
is a nifty little compromise. The CG of the body-lens combination has
shifted forward onto the upturned fingers of the left hand, but the lip now
allows the right hand to take a little more of the weight as the same
amount of squeeze by the right hand now increases its capacity/stability by
probably 50%. The middle finger is able to anchor the body better with the
thumb. It's not much, but it seems to be just enough to make a noticeable
difference.
On a side-note, I get far less vibration-induced blurring when using the
MD2 than without. It's kinda a problem for me, because I prefer using the
bodies without the MD2 because of size/weight, but the image-quality with
the MD2 encourages me to go that direction. A recent event was shot
exclusively with the OMs. One body had the MD2, the other not. Honestly,
even though there were distinct advantages to the smaller, lighter weight
camera (especially when carrying two), having a common interface and
identical configuration between two bodies is the way to go. I'm usually
shooting one film at these things now (Portra 400) so it's just a matter of
lens convenience. At another event, I shot only with one camera/lens
combination (OM-3Ti with 50/1.4) and in that setup, no drives were used,
but the grip attachment was.
Life is good. Who needs digital? I'm enjoying my OM system's second
childhood.
AG
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