Jim Simon photography

Film Photography and some other stuff, you'll see


Olympus 35SP



I should like this camera a lot more than I seem to, I really should. It has done nothing wrong and does a lot right. The meter works right down into near dark, and the lens wide open is no worse than the best and better than most, and "wide open" means f1.7 and there's not much wrong with that. The focusing is quick and short travel. But the rangefinder patch is quite small and, on my camera, a bit yellowed out and hard to find sometimes, though it's not been a real problem. However I feel that I'm just not a rangefinder person - probably some people are and some aren't. For me an SLR or a zone focus camera is more intuitive in use. I have a Leica M2 which is a rangefinder of course, but the focus patch is bigger and the viewfinder in general more open and bright than that of this 35 SP so I find that easier than this Olympus, but I still don't reach for it all the time because it's just a little slow for me to use.

I have realised I don't particularly have situations in which this 35 SP becomes my natural camera to load up and take out. It's low light performance is attractive, but the release of the shutter at slow speeds often leads to shake which rather defeats the object. I don't mean that I tend to shake the camera at low shutter speeds, I mean that the momentum of the shutter releasing is such that it knocks the camera very slightly and that at low shutter speeds this matters. There is more on this below.

That said, I do have many photos that I took with this camera that I like just fine, and looking at the examples I've picked out for this page there really is nothing wrong with the whole concept, so I suppose the reason I don't use it much is that I don't get on with rangefinder focusing.



HP5/Perceptol



To illustrate how well the meter works pretty much in the dark. Not bad, and no shake here. Tri-X/HC-110



Nothing special as an image, though it is special to me as the two in the picture are family. I place it here to show a good meter performance. HP5/Perceptol



A wall. HP5 Perceptol



So, above, here's a lowish light frame shot with an audibly slow shutter speed - probably around 1/30th which for me, using other cameras, is not too slow as I routinely use 1/30th with all other cameras and don't even take two pictures at 1/15th when using my M2 and I find I can do this without camera shake.

Now, the meter's done a great job, which is certainly something I do rely on with the 35-SP, and I managed to get a good focus (probably by estimating the distance and dialing it in), but the heavy "thwakang!" of the shutter release has kicked the camera sideways and we end up with an unusable image.

Here's a detail:



The Trip = no shake, the 35-SP = shake, or the potential to shake, and we don't want that!



Compare this with an image from my trusty Trip 35 (above - in case you're lost up and down)


So - do I love the 35-SP? No. It's a camera. Do I use it? No. Do I want to be without it? Well, as of 2019, yes I do. It needed to go to someone who'd use it and my faith in its total ability had been undermined by the big boing. I respect the absolutism that clearly was the intent behind its manufacture, but if I'm not going to put films in it, what's the point? Selling it felt wrong, but I don't miss it.