52 rolls, 52 cameras, 52 weeks

This week's camera is a real blast from the past for me…

The Olympus OM-1N is a slightly updated version of the original OM-1 that was announced at Photokina as the M-1 in 1972. Leica (with their M series rangefinder cameras) complained about the 'M-1' name and thus was born the 'OM-1'.

Olympus OM-1N + F.Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 Auto-S lens

I had one of these beauties in the 80s and loved using it so when this example popped up in a charity shop recently I couldn't resist!

Manual focus, manual exposure and a range of relatively inexpensive but excellent Zuiko lenses make the OM-1 a good buy for anybody wanting a simple 'old school' entry into film photography.

I'd almost forgotten how nicely the OM cameras handle… aperture, focus and shutter speed can all be adjusted without taking the camera from the eye and without sacrificing a comfortable grip on the camera/lens combination. The positioning of the shutter speed ring may be unconventional but it works fantastically well!

Finally got round to writing last week's post… Phew!

The Nikon F-301 (sold in the USA as the N2000) was introduced in 1985, replacing the FG. Although manual focus, the F-301 was the first Nikon SLR to feature a polycarbonate body, built-in winder and DX film coding.

Nikon F-301 + 50mm f/1.8 AI-S lens

Power is supplied by four AAA batteries that fit into the base of the camera which results in the tripod socket being extremely offset although the AH-3 adapter could be used to rectify this issue. The viewfinder is beautifully clear and focusing is a doddle with either split-image rangefinder or the microprism collar.

Two program exposure modes are available (normal and high-speed) as are aperture-priority and manual, TTL flash is also available with a suitable flashgun.

Over the years I've managed to acquire a pair of F-301s and having dug this one out to use it again I have to admit that I don't think I'll be parting with either any time soon…

Another Pentax this week, the MZ-M (also sold as the ZX-M) 35mm SLR…

Pentax MZ-M with SMC 50mm f/2 and 28mm f/2.8 lenses

The MZ-M was released in 1997 and was intended to be the successor to the student's favourite, the K1000. It never really caught on in the way that the rugged mechanical K1000 did though but as a plus the MZ-M doesn't command as high a price secondhand…

When used with KA mount lenses the MZ-M offers programmed AE, aperture and shutter priority and manual exposure modes, with the K mount lenses I'm using only aperture priority and manual are available (not a problem for me!)

Pentax MZ-M

The controls are simple but include everything most film shooters need, +/- 3 stops exposure compensation, depth of field preview, AE lock and the facility to manually set the film ISO.

And the weight of this camera! (or rather the lack of it) makes it an easy camera to carry around all day without getting a sore neck or shoulder… something I'm all in favour of!

I've loaded a roll of Bellamy Hunt's (AKA Japancamerahunter) JCH Street Pan 400 and I'm looking forward to seeing how both film and camera perform!

Another Minolta this week, in the shape of the X-300 SLR…

I picked this up a couple of years ago needing a repair to the MC coupler around the lens mount, the aperture ring was impossible to turn. A little dismantling found a spring that was attached to nothing in particular and some fiddling and a lot of swearing got it all put back together and the camera seems to work just fine!

I've picked up a couple of the excellent Rokkor lenses in the meantime, the MD 45mm f/2 that appears in the photographs and an MC 28mm f/2.8. The X-300 is a simple manual/aperture-priority automatic SLR that was produced between 1984 and 1990 as a less expensive alternative to the X-500, lacking its off-the-film flash mode, depth-of-field preview button and interchangeable focusing screens.

When I returned to SLR photography in the early 1990s (after a period of using some very uninspiring point & shoot cameras) I bought a Centon DF-300, a Chinese copy of the X-300 made for the UK photographic retail chain Jessops and quite frankly I hated it, quickly getting rid of it in favour of (if memory serves) a Canon EOS 1000FN.

The 'original' X-300 has a much better build quality and a nicer feel to it than the DF-300 and the Rokkor lenses should be noticeably better than the truly horrible Centon zooms that I purchased all those years ago!

Another 35mm SLR this week in the form of the Minolta 7000 AF (also sold as the Maxxum 7000 and α7000).

The Minolta 7000 is regarded by many as being the first real autofocus 35mm SLR camera, hitting the market in February 1985. The Nikon F3AF and Pentax ME F were earlier than this but both required bulky motorised AF lenses to function whereas the Minolta had its AF sensors and focusing drive inside the camera body which allowed much smaller and cheaper lenses to be produced.

I remember a couple of my school friends having Canon AE-1 Program kits and they both regarded autofocus as 'cheating' somewhat… how times change!

The new AF lens mount wasn't initially popular with loyal Minolta users as the existing (and often excellent) MC and MD lenses weren't compatible with it but the company did gain a lot of new customers who liked the convenience and advantages that autofocus offered.

I picked this example up in a charity shop last year, complete with the 50mm f/1.7 lens for £15 and was surprised to find another (much tattier) example in another shop in the same town later that day for three times that price!

Finally, some results!

I collected my first set of pictures yesterday, having had the film developed and scanned by Harrison Cameras in Sheffield and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Week one of this project/madness saw me using a Ricoh KR-10 Super along with the standard Rikenon 50mm f/2 lens and some out of date Fujicolor C200 film. Although I've imported the scans into Lightroom the only editing I've done is a little straightening, slight cropping and a smidgeon of sharpening.

I'm quite taken by the Ricoh, the shutter release has a bit of a hair trigger and there's no auto-exposure lock but other than those tiny issues it's difficult to find fault with the camera. The standard 50mm lens seems pretty good too with only its minimum focusing distance of 0.6m (as opposed to the 0.45m of my Nikon AIS and Olympus OM lenses) letting it down a little.

Apologies for the delay to this week's post, I've been too busy, out and about taking photos to do any writing this week!

This is a real favourite of mine and an absolute classic, ladies and gentlemen I present you with the legendary Nikon F3!

Without a doubt this is one of Nikon's finest pro cameras, continuing in production even after Nikon introduced both the autofocus F4 and the fiendishly complicated F5. The F3 by contrast, is manual focus and has just two exposure modes, manual and aperture-priority automatic.

The F3 is part of a system that includes interchangeable focusing screens, viewfinders (mine having the HP, high-eyepoint finder, more suitable for those of us who wear glasses), bulk film and data backs and the high-speed (for the 1980s at least) 5.5 frames per second MD-4 motordrive. So far I've resisted the heavyweight addition of the motordrive but a couple of focusing screens have made their way into my bag along with the DW-3 Waist Level Finder.

I haven't used my F3 for a while but seeing Sean Penn using what appeared to be an F3/T ('T' for 'Titanium') in the 2013 Ben Stiller film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty last week I thought I'd give it an airing!

Decision made…

A recent find was this Ricoh KR-10 Super, complete with Rikenon 50mm f/2 lens and a smart ever-ready case. A bit of a clean and some fresh batteries and it's ready to go.

Up until this the only Ricoh I'd ever used was the 2.3 megapixel RDC-5300 that I briefly owned in 2001 and beyond the fact that Ricoh SLRs use the Pentax PK lens mount I know very little about the brand.

Introduced in 1982 the KR-10 Super seems pretty standard for its time, centre-weighted metering, aperture priority automatic and manual, no bells, no whistles but there are a couple of features that I really like the look of.

The first thing that caught my eye was the focusing screen, it's nothing fancy, just a split-image spot in a microprism band but the split is diagonal not horizontal which makes focusing on subjects that don't have an obvious vertical line much easier.

Secondly this shutter speed dial show speeds from 16 to 1/1000 sec… That's right, 16 full seconds is the slowest manually selectable speed and as far as I'm aware that's quite unusual in a camera of this era.

Mike Butkus' orphan cameras.com has furnished me with a pdf copy of the instruction manual and I have a small supply of slightly out of date Fujicolor C200 film in the fridge so I'm ready for the off!