Old Classics

I have, in drawers and bags, an eclectic collection of camera equipment that stretches back nearly 40 years. The majority of it still works, and a considerable portion actually works together. The portion that works together was all made by Olympus, spanning film and digital.

Everyone (including myself) drools over the latest M.Zuiko primes. While I long to have the spare cash at hand to purchase my own copies, budget realities at the moment keep me from performing such impulsive purchases.

As a substitute for new glass I mount an old OM 50mm 1:1.4 or OM 28mm 1:2.8 manual focus film-era lens via a pair of adapters on the E-P2 and use those in place of the M.Zuiko 45mm or 12mm MSC primes. Recently I've been working with the OM 50mm, discovering that even though it was designed and built for film and for a frame roughly four times larger than the 4/3rds sensor, it never-the-less can produce quality photographs.

Using film era lenses with the E-P2 demands the use of the VF-2 EVF. That's the only way I can see the "scintillation" effect when the subject in the viewfinder is in sharpest focus. Edges take on a white scintillation.

Using the old primes is not only cheap but fun. And fast. With autofocus off I can fire off frames far faster than any with any other method or lens I know of. And when the camera shutter trips when I want it to, I capture the right moment more often than not. And that's very satisfying.

I checked the shutter count on my E-P2 tonight using biofos' method and discovered I've tripped the shutter more times on the E-P2 than I have on every other body, especially the E-3.