Restoring an OM-10: Photography @ McGraw Park, Bloomington, IL

I was away in Bloomington for the July 4th weekend – I had taken a couple of cameras with me, and an assortment of lenses – it was generally too hot and hazy for photography, except in the very early morning and late evening. Besides, I had decided to work on the garden cleanup that I was never able to do in Spring.

I had an “accidental” Olympus OM-10 which I recently acquired (I bought it because I was more interested in the lens it was attached to – a Komine made Vivitar 55mm f/2.8 1:1 macro).

Anyway, I wasn’t particularly interested in the OM-10, since all my other Olympus cameras are the single digit professional series machines. I was pleasantly surprised at the rugged build of the camera, it was in pretty good condition externally, although this camera needed a thorough cleaning and replacement of the light trap seals, a replacement battery cover etc. As usual, John Goodman’s light trap seal kit came in handy – he’s an awesome resource for the amateur camera restoration enthusiast.

I was able to make the fixes in Bloomington and shot a roll of film to see what the OM-10 is capable of. I thought it would be a good time to use my Olympus Winder 2, since I hadn’t used it in a while.

The OM-10 is an aperture priority camera with no manual shutter setting, which is not a problem at all – manual settings need the OM-10 manual adapter, occasionally available on Ebay, but not really needed. All one has to do is set a particular aperture (and focus, of course) and the camera takes care of the shutter speed. The shutter setting is indicated in the viewfinder LED. I recommend opening up the lens aperture to maintain a shutter speed range of 1/125 for a 50mm lens and 1/250 for a short zoom.

Here are the pictures with the OM-10 (with Winder) with a Sigma 35-105mm lens. My little Sunny at the water playground in McGraw Park.

McGraw Park