Arran Salerno | Photography - Blog » sp

Silver SP

Arran — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:15:21 +0000

Well, the other week i was made an offer i couldnt refuse. The offer was to buy another Olympus SP, but this time in Silver, for a very reasonable price. Actually, an extremely reasonable price. I wasnt in the market for another camera, let alone another SP, but somehow i convinced myself i should get another one. =/
The SP on offer came with its original case and manual, but the best bit was that it had just undergone a CLA, plus it had a modification that allows it to take modern voltage batteries without any stuffing around. These two things alone would of cost more than what i ended up buying the camera for, so i was pretty pleased. I was about to send my black SP in for a CLA anyway, so this saved me the hassle, plus i can now leave it at home and not worry about scratching the thing (well thats how i justified the purchase). The silver one is now my user, eventhough it is cosmetically and functionally flawless. (I would of been happy wich a scratched up user, but who am i to complain?)
So anyway, heres a quick picture of them together below :

Olympus 35-SP

Arran — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:39:47 +0000

There are quite alot of options available if you’re looking for a 70′s rangefinder. Some good, some bad, but most pretty interesting in their own particular way. There is one model however that stands out amongst many.. The brilliant Olympus 35-SP.
Built between 1969 and 1976, this compact rangefinder packs in an unrivaled set of features that puts to shame many of even the most modern rangefinders. It’s tack sharp 42mm f/1.7 G.Zuiko lens produces pictures with brilliant colour and contrast. The large bright viewfinder contains parallax error indicators and an accurate rangefinder patch. Then there’s the sophisticated metering system.
The Olympus 35-SP has the distinction of being the first ever 35mm rangefinder with dual metering options. Both centre weighted and spot metering is available to the user, which is quite amazing when you consider its age, and the compact size of the camera. After the SP a spot meter was included on the Leica M5 and CL but they were already beaten to the punch by Olympus, and quite simply just didn’t rival the 6 degree spot that came with the SP. Unlike many other rangefinders from that era, the light metering works in full manual mode also, which is quite useful when shooting in tricky conditions, or if you’re after a specific effect only manual control can produce.
Besides a revolutionary metering system (it truly was, and is still unrivaled to this day), the the Olympus came with a brilliant lens i mentioned briefly earlier on. The 7 element 42mm f/1.7 G.Zuiko is regarded as one of the finest rangefinder lenses ever produced. The Olympus RD (which came after the SP) has a similar lens, but without the 7th correcting element. Don’t let anybody try and tell you that they’re the same lens, because they’re in a completely different league. The lens focuses down to about 2.8ft and has a super smooth focusing action with a convenient lever on the side of the barrel.
All automatic and manual exposure options are contained on the barrel rings, aswell as a timer. After a while you can adjust these without taking your eye from the viewfinder, but it will take a little practice.

So with the SP you get a bright accurate viewfinder, unrivaled metering options, one of the best rangefinder lenses ever produced, all squeezed into a tough and compact body that manages to weigh less that comparable rangefinders of that era… What more do you want??
Oh yes, it comes in black too, and i got one, and its damn cool

(picture taken with my homemade light box)

*EDIT: I just got a Silver one also, check out a picture of them together here

Check out some other info here, and here

Ghetto style light box

Arran — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:43:00 +0000

Well i’ve been meaning to make one for a while now, and this afternoon i finally did it.
All you need to do is cut out the sides of a cardboard box and cover it with white paper/tracing paper/white plastic etc… Only took about 10 minutes also which was good as my concentration span doesnt often last much longer than that.
The idea is that the light box provides a nice soft even light source to the object placed inside. Its best to have the same type of light on the outside to help with white-balance etc. As you can see my white balances are off as i ended up using 4 completely different light sources, which wasnt ideal.
I think i got an ok result for a first time. I need to work on focusing and composition, aswell as exposure and controlling the harshness of the lights a bit more.. So basically everything..
I’m looking forward to giving it another go.
Here are a few of my results so far (yeah, white balance is pretty badly out).

Oh, and here is my dodgy setup complete with messy room