Purchased for around £50 complete with a Miranda 28-70mm zoom lens, I never loved the Olympus OM10 and by the time we parted company I doubt it was all that fond of me. The camera looks like metal but is mostly plastic and it nagged at me that it was at the consumer end of the line and not one of the classic Olympus SLR bodies like the OM1. On top of that I didn’t like that you needed a separate attachment to control the shutter speed and shoot in full manual mode. The OM10 immediately seemed like a fraud but this was my initiation to film photography and I still had high hopes for the results.
I shot three rolls in our first and only summer together. The first was Kodak ColorPlus 200 using the Miranda lens which I found dark and almost impossible to focus irrespective of the conditions. The pictures were soft and mostly underexposed but viewed kindly and following the passing of time have a charm that comes from analogue photography like they belong to the summer of 1976 not the summer of 2016
The unloved Miranda lens was immediately replaced with a more respectable Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.8. Unfortunately, the kit had improved but the results never did. My next roll was Ilford XP2 shot on a bright summer’s day at the beach in Woolacombe. Using the default aperture priority mode with the lens close to wide open I completely overlooked that the camera was at the maximum shutter speed, and I was overexposing every shot.
I was now two rolls into my film photography experiment, and it was a dead heat between underexposure and overexposure. Despite the disappointments I gave the OM10 one more chance this time with a roll of Kodak Portra 400. Investing in a premium film stock seemed like a good way to bring about an improvement in results and put my previous mistakes behind me. Sadly, it wasn’t to be. At the end of the role, I attempted to rewind the film without turning the release lever on the front of the camera body. Once the tension on the rewind crank became too much the role snapped. Without a dark bag I opened the back of the camera to investigate and ruined anything which might have been salvaged.
Having tried two lenses and three different film stocks it was the OM10 which had to take the rap for this latest failure, and I sold the camera for about the same price I paid. To share the blame amongst my tools I never shot a roll of ColorPlus or XP2 again either.
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Rock on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Dana Brigham on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Steve Curzon on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Ken Burg on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Andrew L on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Ken Rowin on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Comment posted: 19/08/2021
Alan Jones on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 20/08/2021
It is a consumer camera. The build quality is not as good as the OM2 that I eventually upgraded to. The mirror slap is impeccably damped and counter-balanced in the OM2, which is very noticeable swapping back to the OM10. All things considered, the OM10 would top my recommendation list as a first film camera.
Comment posted: 20/08/2021
Louis A. Sousa on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 21/08/2021
Fergus Foster on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 05/12/2021
As a very long time film user I occasionally have the same problems when switching from digital back to film as there is more to remember with film cameras, whereas digital does it all. It just requires a little time to regain all those good film shooting habits.
I have been using the same OM10 and OM20 for around 35 years with several Olympus lenses and have had no problems with any of the kit, so I think the continual references to "consumer grade" are not warranted. The OM10 and OM20 are easy to use due to brilliant design work, not to any lack of features.
The lens I use most is the Zuiko 28mm/3.5, generally considered to be excellent by most reviewers, (and me). Using this combination I have a 30inch x 40inch picture on my sitting room wall.
Keith Drysdale on Olympus OM10 – It’s Not You, It’s Me – By Jay Ridsdale
Comment posted: 13/03/2022