What does £3 of your hard earned cash get you these days? Well, if you look hard enough you might be able to grab yourself a Olympus AF10 Twin. Car boot sale and charity shops are amongst the ideal places to pick such an item up. I grabbed mine at a local car boot with a roll of film still in it…
The Olympus AF10 Twin came into production in 1991. It’s a auto focus point and shoot camera with a built in flash which gives you the choice of auto, off, or fill. It has two lenses: a wide-angle 35mm f/3.5 and a 70mm f/6.3 lens. You switch between the lenses with the touch the small red button on the top of the camera.
Shooting with the Olympus AF10 Twin is simple. Just slide the lens cover over until it clicks. The shutter won’t open until the cover is fully open. When you look through the viewfinder, you’ll see the AF and the flash icon located on the right hand side. This is fixed and doesn’t change when you change the flash settings. However, when you change from lens to lens, pressing the red button on top, you’ll notice a “slide” effect within the viewfinder that changes the field of view.
Given the fact that the Olympus AF10 Twin came with a half used roll of Tudor XLX 200 – a film I’d never come across before – I thought I’d shoot the remaining few frames using both lens to make a make comparison. Tudor film, so I’m told, is a re-badged Fuji Superia 200 film. I’ve no idea how long it had been in the camera or in what conditions both had been stored. Below are a few shots from that roll. To be honest, I think the remaining shots from the roll of came out quite well.
For the next roll, I happened to have a roll of Konica XG 200 in the fridge which expired back in 1995. I reckoned that marrying up the two made for a nice combination – the F10 and film would be roughly contemporary to each other – what could go wrong?
Now, I’ve been shooting expired film for some months now – I enjoy seeing how mixed and varied results can be. Everything I’ve shot so far has been great… that was until this roll. It seems that 23 years on, this roll of Konica XG 200 hasn’t faired well. All the shots with the AF10 Twin came out super grainy, misty, and to be honest, rubbish.
It seems that 3 of your British pounds can still get you a decent point & shoot camera. The Olympus AF10 Twin might not be the best looking camera, but despite its age, it works very well. It’s super easy to use and the choice of lens is a distinct plus point. A perfect sling-in-your-bag camera; I’m sure I will use it again at some point! It’s just a shame the same can’t be said for using film from the same era – I’ve had some good results from expired film, but it would seem it’s a lot less reliable than this little Olympus AF10 Twin…
Rick Davy
www.rickdavy.co.uk
Twitter: @rickdavy & @aditloa
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Picked one up a few weeks ago and wasn’t sure what it was as all the writing has worn off, just put a filter in it to give it a test
Nice one Cliff. I think with a decent more robust film in it, it could still deliver
Hey Rick,
How are you scanning your shots? I’ve been doing a bit of expired film myself lately, and a lot of the time it tries to compensate, for the dark base, causing the hazy effect. normally you can fix it pretty quickly by setting the black and white points for each channel.
Heh Jake
My scans are all done by the guys at AG Photolab. I haven’t experienced the issues your facing.
I believe this is the same camera as the Olympus AF-1 Twin just redesigned
I have one of these, bought as part of a job lot. Never put a film through it. Compact tele lenses leave a lot to be desired, and the wide lens is available in many other cameras so I ever bothered. Looks suitably spider-eyed with the dual lenses and AF window, so it lives in a display cabinet.