A personal choice on what is the best vintage beginner 35mm SLR film camera to get started shooting manual. The Olympus OM-1 film camera is considered by many to be a great pick when learning the ropes with shooting film. Tuber ‘Shootswithcoops’ brings us this insightful look at the Olympus OM-1 and why he feels this is the way to start your 35mm film experience.
Naming a best vintage film camera to learn with is very subjective. You should weigh the best feature set that suit your needs. This will take a lot of reading to know all the facts. But, if you want to just jump into the vintage 35mm film camera game you should not be disappointed with the Olympus OM-1.
Some info on the Olympus OM-1:
The Olympus OM-1 is a fully manual 35mm film SLR camera produced by Olympus. This requires manual exposure and manual focus, manual film advance and manual film rewind. All the works with the camera is mechanical, With the exception of the light meter, which the camera works fine without. The high quality camera bodies and the Zuiko Lenses are made in Japan and are built to a very high manufacturing standard.
The Olympus OM-1 camera shutter speed selector is a ring located on the camera body just behind the lens mount, this allows you to adjust the exposure when peeking through the viewfinder. B, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, 30, 60, 125, 250, 500, 1000 are the shutter speed settings. 1/1000th is the fastest shutter speed you can achieve, shooting wide open in daylight requires an ND filter because lighting fast shutter speeds are required to limit light reaching the film.
Some great lenses were available for the Olympus OM-1. The Zuiko lenses are very compact for their quality. In most cases you can find good lenses at a fair price. The 50mm F1.8, 35mm f2.8 and 28mm F2.8 are all low priced and compact lenses compared to modern optics now being sold. More then sharp enough for film, their small dimensions help make for a lightweight SLR camera system.
You can buy a good copy of the excellent Olympus OM-1 here at a fair price.