Thanks to all, who have replied to my email, foods for thought are always
great and I am processing all your inputs. In the meantime let me try to
clarify what I thought when writing the email.
One thing I forgot to mention in the original mail was, that the young guy
is around 20 years old and is studying to become an engineer. Thus I am
not too worried that he may accidentially drop the camera or otherwise
damage it.
It seems, that quite a number of listees favour the two-digit camreas as
"learners" over the single-digits (I had specifically OM2n in mind). There
are mainly two reasons why I originally did not think about the
10/20/30/40. The first reason is that the two-digit series was not build
to be as durable as the one-digit series, hence I assume that they do not
age as gracefully (to put it more directly: I'd be more afraid that a 2nd
hand om10/20/30/40 would break, than I'd be that an 1/2/3/4
would).
Secondly, I remember at some point considering buying an OM20 myself. One
of the things I remember as discouraging was, that the camera seemed
mainly build for using in auto-mode (apeture priority). I.e. when
selecting "manual" mode, the led's in the viewfinder would only indicate
the suggested shutterspeed, corresponding to the selected apeture, while
not indicating if the actually selected shutter speed would cause the
picture to be over- or underexposed. Thus I anticipated quite a lot of
"moving camera from eye to chest to check the settings and compare with
the meter" - and decideded agains that (cannot remember what I bought
instead, though). For a young lad, eager to learn taking pictures, I
figured that this would be kind of a "turn-off" - or an annoyance at
least. And if I recall correctly, this behavior is the same for all the
two-digit OM's (I only have the OM30 myself, and on thatone behaves is
like described above). Am I remembering correctly, or?
As for going with Olympus rather than suggesting him to take up some other
brand, well....
I am one of those, who has had his hands on a few different cameras from a
few different manufacturers, and I have to admit that even in competition
with flagships from other manufacturers, the trusty, old Olympi come out
as winners by me. There are of course several reasons for this, but that
is not really the issue at hand. The issue at hand is, that if he gets an
OM, he'll be able to get a durable body which I know in and out and can
help him with, and that he will find it easy to borrow lenses from me. If
he gets a decent camera-body, and then after a while decides to drop the
interrest (or want another system camera), then I will also be able to
purchase and use the body from him. If he gets caught on the Olympi, then
he can always save up for an OM3/4(Ti) and get the best the current new
market can offer.
Also, I am not too impressed by the current manual focus manual exposure
cameras, manufactured by other manufacturers and should he purchase such
he'd be stuck with it and the gear it comes with (I use mamiya medium
format and Olympus for 35mm - I wouldn't like to start on yet another
system, and I do not have gear for other systems than those two). They
appear to me as just "little brothers of wunderbricks" rather than as if
they were designed for manual operation (of course, I have had my hands on
only 2-3 of these, none for more than an hour or so, so I may very well
stand to be corrected).
Again, it is interresting and educating to read your various thoughts,
experiences and opinions, so please feel free to feed me your comments on
the above.
Thanks again
--thomas
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