Olympus/Zuiko

When I was looking through the Blog Stats for Olympuszuiko, I realized that this is the 100th post. Although I’ve been photographing for  many years, it’s only been a year (almost) since I started WRITING about my experiences with photography and with Olympus and other manual cameras. 

My wife has been telling me for a while to purchase a digital SLR and be done with the expense of film development etc, since I can use my beloved Zuiko, Kiron, Minolta and Vivitar lenses on most digital SLRs with the proper adapter. My T-mount lenses can easily adapt as well. Besides, it would also keep me from continuing to buy bits and pieces of equipment – lenses, bodies and other camera paraphernalia.

While that is true, I would definitely miss the feel of my beautiful manual cameras. My Olympus OM-1, OM1n, OM2, OM2n, OM-10 and OM-PC AND my Minolta Dynax 800si, the Ricoh CR-5, the Yashica TL-Super and the heavy Fujicarex II. Besides, if I gave up film completely, what would I do with the fixed lens cameras – in particular the Olympus Trip 35 cameras, the Ricoh 500G and Olympus 35 RC and Yashica Electro GSN rangefinders? To say nothing of the Pen EE half frame. They would end up on a shelf and slowly rot.

Still, progress cannot be denied. I have been looking into purchasing a Digital SLR for a while, and while it would seem natural for me to purchase an Olympus DSLR – perhaps the E-410 or E-510, but I’m not comfortable with the manual Zuiko compatibility issues, since even with the E-series Four-Thirds to OM Zuiko lens adapter, I will not be able to use the manual Zuikos stopped down to f/11 or f/16 which I use for most of daytime photographs. On top of that, my Minolta AF lenses would languish.

A better option for me is the Sony Alpha series cameras either the Alpha 100 or the new Alpha 700, with their full compatibility with all Minolta AF lenses, including my 3rd party Phoenix, Tamron and Sigma AF lenses. I use them quite a lot, especially the Phoenix 28-105mm and I would definitely be lost if I could not use them on any digital camera I ended up buying. I could use all my Zuiko and other Olympus Mount lenses on the Sony Alpha with the Bower adapter. I’ve used the Bower Minolta Maxxum-OM adapter successfuly on my Dynax 800si and have been pleased with the results.

I’m curious about the Sony Alpha 700, when I have a chance to actually try it out, perhaps I’ll be able to make up my mind. I have heard that Sony has fixed the “noise” issues that were a problem at 400 ASA and above and that the camera is much more rugged. I like the “rugged” part. Can’t ask for the digitals to be comparable with my manual cameras, but I’d sure like something that I could take on a hike without being afraid that it’d would die on me.

I’ve enjoyed writing about my cameras and lenses, and my feeble attempts at photography. As I look over the pictures that I have taken over the past year with a critical eye and compare them with photographs that I have made over the past 9-10 years, I realize that I have made progress in some areas and still need to work on several others – most notably, exposure issues, composition and lens selection.

Oh, well.. like the old saying goes – “the unexamined life is not worth living”. I guess it’s the same for photography. One last word.. I get about 200 hits a day, mostly people who are looking for information about a particular camera or lens. I am grateful to all those who stop by and read my blog… and occasionally leave a comment on a post.

Thank you for stopping by.

text and images © 2007 ajoy muralidhar. all names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

The Zuiko 100mm f/2.8 is one of the best lenses made by Olympus. It’s a sweet lens… and a pleasure to use. It is very small, just a couple of millimeters longer than the 50mm f/1.8. When set at f/4, it’s possibly the best portrait lens there is. But it’s great for scenics as well, pulling the scene just enough to focus on the interesting areas, and leaving the behind the urban clutter (signs, poles. wires etc) that are the bane of photographers everywhere. I took the Zuiko 100mm along with an Olympus OM-2N to photograph the Fall colors.

Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8	Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8
Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8	Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8
Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8	Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8

Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8

Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8

Fall – Zuiko 100mm f/2.8

Photographed with an OM-2N and Zuiko 100mm f/2.8 lens, Fuji Super 100 film, overcast conditions 1/125 second at f/5.6

text and images © 2007 ajoy muralidhar. all names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

This old farmhouse and barn sits just outside of Westminster, a couple of miles north of the town. I usually drive that route when I want to take a more scenic way into the town, instead of taking MD Rte 97 south from work. This is a very accessible site, just off the road, with easy parking… there aren’t many vehicles around that road (except on Mondays, when a nearby auction house is holding their occasional outdoor and barn auction). I’ve photographed this barn many times over the past year. The pond, well and barn always stop me dead in my tracks., and I pull over for a couple of minutes just savoring the view.

OM-2, Vivitar 24mm 1/500 at f/16, Fuji 400

OM-2, Vivitar 24mm, 1/500 at f/16, Fuji 400

OM-2, Sigma 35-105mm f/1.8, 35mm 1/500 at f/16, Fuji 400

OM-2, Zuiko 50mm, 1/500 at f/16, Fuji 400

OM-1, 50mm f/1.8, Fuji 200

Ricoh 500G, 1/250 at f/16 Fuji 200

Ricoh 500G, 1/250 at f/16, Fuji 200

Photographed with an OM-2, (Vivitar 24mm, Sigma 35-105mm, Zuiko 50mm f/1.8) OM-1 (50mm f/1.8) and Ricoh 500G

text and images © 2007 ajoy muralidhar. all names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

Yes… in Gaithersburg. But not for long. This is probably one of the last pieces of farmland within the municipal limits of Gaithersburg, Field Road intersects Sam Eig road, very close to the I-370 Spur. In fact, Sam Eig road becomes I-370 as it heads towards Rockville. But you know it was too good to last – late this summer, a sign went up saying that Ryan Homes is going to be building a bunch of homes here… if it weren’t for the housing slump, they would already be breaking ground. I expect it will happen by next Spring, and then it’s goodbye to another beautiful farm… I wanted to get a couple of pictures of the site before the terra-forming machines moved in and razed everything. I lugged my Minolta along for this shoot.

Field Road

Field Road

Field Road

photographed with a Minolta Dynax 800si, Maxxum AF 35-105mm f/4.5-5.6, Fuji Super 200

text and images © 2007 ajoy muralidhar. all names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

I found this little camera on eBay a few months ago, and just got around to running a roll through it. It was in generally good condition, even had a tiny 22.5mm UV filter on the Zuiko 28mm f/3.5 lens. The reason I took so long to clean up this camera was the light seals – the Pen EE has a slide-off back cover, not hinged like a traditional camera – so there is a very substantial seal required on the inside of the bottom cover. My curiosity about the camera finally made me give in and get the seals done.

Yoshihisa Maitani designed the Pen EE. Maitani gained fame as the designer of the exquisite Pen F interchangeable lens cameras and the legendary Olympus OM series cameras. The Pen camera dates back to 1959, but the Pen EE is from 1961. Olympus went on to make many more versions of the ‘automatic’ Pen EE cameras all the way into the 1980’s.

There were 2 versions of the first Pen EE, I have the older version with “Olympus” across the front, instead of “Olympus PEN”. The original version also has the leatherette cover instead of the ‘basket weave’ covering of the later model. One more difference – the older Pen EE has a 1/60 second shutter speed while the later basket view Pen EE has 2 shutter speeds – 1/250 for the Auto mode and 1/30 for the Flash setting.

The Pen EE is a Half Frame camera – that means 2 images for each frame of 35mm film. The 35mm format is 24x36mm, so half frame is 24x18mm in vertical format. It’s a small image, but the 28mm Zuiko lens is sharp enough to enable nice quality prints up to 8 x10 inches if used with a tripod, and 5×7 inch prints easily when hand-held. The film ISO range only extends to 200 ASA. The 28mm f/3.5 lens provides great depth of field, so it’s a point and shoot camera.

A fixed 1/60th second shutter speed on my Pen EE. That’s it. It’s the same if you set it on Auto or Flash on the original Pen EE. In the Auto mode, the selenium cell light meter sets the aperture automatically, while if you use the Flash mode, you can set the aperture from f/3.5 to f/22, but still at 1/60 second. That’s tricky.

I wanted to use the Sunny 16 rule with the camera, but the slowest print film available to me is ISO 100. Now the Sunny 16 rules says that for film speed for 100 ISO, the shutter speed will be 1/125 second at f/16 in bright sunny conditions. With the fixed shutter speed of 1/60, I would end up with pictures on the overexposed side by one stop. To compensate I would have to close down the shutter by another stop to f/22 to get an equivalent exposure.

The alternative is to set to f/16 and deal with the overexposure later with digital correction (by increasing shadow). In most cases, this will be fine, since the film has enough latitude to handle some overexposure and still produce a decent image. However, since the best color reproduction usually requires a slight under-exposure, it may still be a little too much.

This also means that to use the Pen EE in manual mode with Sunny f/16, we are limited to 100 speed film or lower. 200 ASA film would overexpose by 2 stops, and while film has a great deal of latitude, that much over-exposure would be difficult to correct. Of course, in shade or in cloudy conditions, the aperture range is more than adequate.

In my case, I tend to overexpose an additional stop in cloudy over cast conditions – instead of closing down the aperture, I was actually opening it up from sheer force of habit because of conditioning with my Ricoh 500G and Olympus OM cameras. Now that I’ve a chance to examine the results, I would say f22 for Sunny conditions, f/16 for slight overcast, and f/11 for shade (f/8 and f/5.6 only if you are really unsure.)

As far as the film development goes, any photo processing lab can handle it since it’s just regular 35mm film processing. My advice is to have them develop and put it on a CD, and make a special note to NOT cut the film into strips. Don’t ask them for prints. Later, you can split the half frame images apart using cropping software. Make one copy of each digital image, and then crop the left side from one copy and the right side from the other copy. You can then save to a CD/Card/flash drive and get it printed like any other digital image. I use Walmart’s one hour service and they do a great job, costs $4.23 and beats sending it a specialty processor out of state.

Pen EE	Pen EE
Pen EE	Pen EE
Pen EE	Pen EE
Pen EE	Pen EE
Pen EE	Pen EE
Pen EE	Pen EE
Pen EE	Pen EE

Pen EE

Pen EE

Pen EE

Pen EE

Pen EE

Photographed with an Olympus Pen EE (28mm f/3.5) on Fuji Super 100 film

Pen EE Camera #168426

Pen EE Camera #168426

Pen EE pictures photographed with a Panasonic Lumix DMC LC-20 2 megapixel digital camera

text and images © 2007 ajoy muralidhar. all names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

Fall comes pretty late to Montgomery County. The colors just seemed to peak just last week, a full 3 weeks after most of the Northeast had their glorious blazes. But then, we don’t have that many Maples here -just enough to set them off against the yellows and brown-golds and greens. We have lots of Sycamores, Pin and White Oak, Birches and Yellow Poplar that seem to hold on to their green a lot longer. Even now, there are a lot of trees that are still predominantly green, just starting to go yellow and red

These pictures were all taken around Gaithersburg, Rockville and Germantown. The woods around Robertson Park and Morris Park are especially beautiful this week. I was out these past 2 weekends with a few cameras. These pictures were all taken with my OM-2n. I used the Tokina RMC 70-210 f/3.5 and the Vivitar SERIES ONE 70-210mm f/3.5 Zoom lens

If the Tokina RMC 70-210mm Zoom appears to have the same specifications as the Vivitar SERIES ONE, it’s because they share the same design genes. Lens enthusiasts and fans of the Vivitar Series One lenses will recall that Vivitar had several versions of the Series One 70-210mm. Their first one was the Kino Precision made 70-210m lens (serial number 22xxxxx) that was built like a tank. Weighed 2 lbs and has a 67mm front element. The second version of the lens was made for Vivitar by Tokina (serial number 37xxxxx).

The Tokina made lens was smaller and lighter than the Kino version – just as sharp, and with a constant f/3.5 aperture like its predecessor, but with a 62mm front element. Vivitar went through their lens manufacturers real quickly in those days…. they then turned to Komine to produce the third version (Serial number 28xxxxx) and dropped Tokina. Tokina then produced the lens under its own name, the Tokina RMC 70-210mm f/3.5 (with their special multicoated lens) which I was lucky enough to get my hands on. It’s a very beautiful lens, silky smooth operation and a pleasure to use.

On a side note: You’d think that Vivitar would have stayed with Komine, since the 3rd version of the 70-210mm Series One is considered by many to to be superior to the previous two – it had a f/2.8-4 aperture instead of the fixed f/3.5 but weighed as much as the Kino version (860gms) in spite of the smaller 62mm front element. Vivitar went on to make a 4th and 5th version of the Series One 70-210mm, turning to Cosina for the manufacture. Alas, the quality just wasn’t the same. If you’re in the market, I’d suggest that you look for the Kino, Tokina and Komine versions and give the Cosina versions a pass.

I love the older version Kino made Vivitar Series One, but it’s a bear to carry and I can barely hand-hold it. Besides, it looks disproportionately large on the small frame of my OM SLR bodies. I always worry about damage to the mount with such a big lens. I can see how why the later versions (especially the 2nd and 3rd versions made by Tokina and Komine) became so popular – they were smaller, even though they weighed just as much. The Tokina version weighs 790gms. Still very heavy by modern standards. Hey, it has 14 elements in 10 groups.

Check out Mark Roberts’ photography website for a comparison of the different Vivitar Series One 70-210mm lenses. He prefers the Komine Version (#3) but I think the Tokina has better contrast. The Tokina RMC 70-210mm f/3.5, however does not have a Macro mode like it’s Vivitar Series One counterparts.

Tokina RMC 70-210mm	Tokina RMC 70-210mm
Tokina RMC 70-210mm	Tokina RMC 70-210mm
Tokina RMC 70-210mm	Tokina RMC 70-210mm
Tokina RMC 70-210mm	Vivitar Series One 70-210mm
Vivitar Series One 70-210mm	Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Vivitar Series One 70-210mm f/3.5

Vivitar Series One 70-210mm f/3.5

Tokina RMC 70-210mm

Photographed with an OM2n, Tokina RMC 70-210mm f/3.5, Vivitar Series One 70-210mm f/3.5 with Fuji Superia 200 film. I used a polarizer in the sunlight. The exposures in low light were at 1/125 sec at f/5.6

text and images © 2007 ajoy muralidhar. all names, websites, brands and technical data referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.