The Olympus Trip 35 is a much vaunted little camera and has many admirers, this includes me. I feel like I came to the party late on this one. Having shot film pre-digital (there wasn’t any alternative then). Also I had completed a City and Guilds in black and white photography using my now late fathers Pentax K1000, I had given up on film and sold all my gear, the K1000 included (shame on me) and bought a small digital compact.
A Family Get Together
About two years ago I was clearing out some old boxes and came across my wife’s old Olympus Trip 35. I thought about selling it online, a quick check showed that they were going for about £10.00 at the time. “Sod it”, I thought “I’ll run a film through it and see what I get.”
A quick trip to Boots for a roll each of what I remembered was excellent film, Ilford FP4 and HP5.
The first roll through was FP4, and I had a perfect opportunity to use it. My son-in-law had asked me to accompany him on a trial flying lesson my daughter had bought as a Christmas gift. I didn’t need to be asked twice. After that back to theirs to hang out with our grandchildren, perfect!
And the winner is!
I was amazed at the results and this camera! It started a new love affair with film. The ease of shooting this little camera makes it so simple to use, this is zone focusing in its simplest form, easy to use and understand. The lens is so sharp that it lives up to its reputation. Since then I have gone on to expand my collection of film cameras, some Rangefinder and some SLR and even a couple of 6×6 and start a darkroom build, which to date is nearly ready.
Anyway, enough of the words, let the images speak for themselves.
Scott’s Flying Day
Wing and Control Surface
Fuel Cap And Wing
Hanging with the Grandchildren
The light on our Granddaughter
Happy Shooting!
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8 Comments
Christopher Pattison
March 29, 2018 at 5:30 pmI am always happy to see someone using a Trip. It’s up there for me as one of the best cameras ever made; excellent lens, super meter that requires no batteries, compact, cool looking and zone focusing you get the hang of in no time. No wonder they sold by the hod load.
Nice family photos Julian. It’s a great camera for both the everyday and project work,
Mine currently has a roll of HP5 loaded and I will be taking it to my niece’s 18th birthday party tomorrow. 🙂
julianhiggs
March 29, 2018 at 5:45 pmThanks Chris, it really is a fabulous little gem. It’s so easy to dismiss it due to it’s simplicity, but the image results speak for themselves. A true classic. I admit I have never thought of using one for a project, but I may just do that in the future. Cheers!
Kodachromeguy
March 29, 2018 at 9:51 pmVery nice, indeed! I think the last picture of your grand-daughter is superb. Of course, the model make all the difference… The Tessar-style lens seems to work well for portraits, and you guessed perfectly for the focus. One disadvantage of the Trip 35 is you really do not know what aperture has been set by the selenium light meter system, so you can’t control depth of field. But this one was perfect. Keep at it and have fun.
julianhiggs
March 30, 2018 at 7:43 amThanks for the comment, I do like the Trip, it’s not my first choice camera (I’ve fallen down the Olympus OM rabbit hole this time round along with 35RC, SP and a Voightlander CLR) but it got me shooting film again. The lack of control for the majority of its target audience would I imagine be less of an issue than to a more advanced shooter. Its appeal to me is its simplicity and speed, once you get your estimating of distances sorted, you are good to go.
David Hill
March 29, 2018 at 11:02 pmReally nice work and a fine tribute to the Oly Trip 35. But oh dear — That’s not a Cessna — not the plane, not the wing, not the cap. Offhand I’d say it’s a Piper Cherokee, or one of the PA28 variants.
Just sayin:).
julianhiggs
March 30, 2018 at 7:35 amHi David, thanks for the comment and thanks for the correction, I can amend the captions, sorry, I’m not too up on civilian aircraft. 😎
Howard Dale
April 6, 2018 at 3:59 pmNice work, I particularly liked the two pictures of the wing. I swapped and ol, no longer used digital compact with a friend for a Pen F and 38mm f1.8 F.Zuiko auto-S, but I haven’t yet used it. I did use the lens with an adapter on my Sony Nex 5n, but I wasn’t too pleased with the result. There might be a problem with the lens, or it could just be my lack of experience at that time with using adapted legacy lenses. I’ll have to try it again. I’ve never used a half frame camera either for that matter.
5 Frames With A Voightlander CLR Rangefinder Camera - By Julian Higgs - 35mmc
July 31, 2018 at 3:01 pm[…] or two I have started to pop in on the off chance to see what I can find. After my success with the Olympus Trip 35 and my “new” Olympus 35RC I had caught the rangefinder bug. In one I found a Rollie […]