Well i started off having a pretty bad morning today before i’d even left for work. But when i got there i had a nice surprise.
I looked on my desk and saw something that i definitely didn’t leave there the previous day. It was in the shape of a crusty old looking Olympus OM1. Awesome!
See the good thing about being known as a “camera/photo guy” among friends is that when one of them sees a camera they think of you.. And this is what happened in this instance. One of the people i work with was at a garage sale earlier on. Unfortunately it was full of the usual plastic toys and old babies clothes… All useless shit (i don’t know why you’d want to buy your newly born baby some old babies clothes that the previous occupant has probably crapped in a dozen times). Anyway, that’s a whole other story.
The guy from work was at this garage sale full of useless crap when he spotted the Olympus. It was covered in dust and grime but still thought of me (hmm, maybe that’s not a good thing?). The asking price was a huge $2, so he bought it for me. I was totally taken back by the gesture as nobody has ever actually bought me an old camera, especially a good one, and especially one that i can actually use with all my other lenses etc. Generally people try to stop me buying old camera stuff and steer me away from anything that i’ll probably end up buying. So yeah, i was extremely happy, and it made my day.
The camera itself is very rough. As in, its the poorest condition camera i’ve ever owned. But i know for a fact it’ll be working perfectly it next to no time. I started off by cleaning it tonight and it’s come up wonderful. The only negative side to cleaning up the camera body is that you suddenly see all the bumps in it that were previously covered up. It was clear from the beginning that this camera will never be a show piece, but i always wanted an OM1 to use, its close to the perfect SLR.
So anyway, after cleaning the body up i thought i should check out to see if the thing actually works. The viewfinder was perfectly clean which was a relief. Then i noticed the light meter needle which was moving as i changed apertures and shutter speeds. Woohoo! That seems to be working, just not sure how accurate it is, but definitely a positive. Quickly fixed the film rewind lever that was assembled wrong (somone must of taken it apart in the past and put it back together wrong.
Next was to see if the shutter actually fired. This is where things get a little less perfect. Well, the shutter itself fires beautifully and at all different speeds. But to get the shutter to fire i need to advance the film lever which is a little strange. For some reason it wont wind fully the first go, so i’ll have to give it 1 wind and a bit for the shutter to be able to fire. Obviously it just needs an adjustment, and it actually still works fine in the end. This thing will be working perfectly soon, but i might start using it before then anyway 
Below is a quick picture of the beast before the clean (It actually looks alot cleaner in the photo than in real life). I’m too tired to post up the cleaned version, so i’ll do that another time. But as you can see, the camera was pretty crappy. Oh it also came with the 50mm f/1.8 lens too which didn’t work until i took it apart also Was definitely a learning experience as i’d never taken a lens apart and had no instructions. I managed to get all the dust out of it and clean the aperture “thingy” (technical word). It all seems to work perfectly, but will probably seize up soon, as i didn’t lubricate any of the parts when i put it back together.
So yeah, here it is so far. I’m looking forward to eventually taking some pictures with it and posting them up here.
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