Yo y'all,
as some of you may remember some good friends had asked me to shoot their
little daughter's christening this saturday.
My most-carried cameras recently have been the OM-2 and the OM-4, but for
this I was going to use the OM-2n (and the 4) as I knew I'd have to use
flash a lot and wanted to take advantage of the flash indicator in the
viewfinder. So I tested the 2n on friday. As part of this test I also put
the Motor Drive 1 on it to make sure this combination worked all right, and
(w/o film) fired a few shots on single and a few series on continuous.
Everything seemed to work ok at first, but then while firing on continuous,
all of the sudden the camera jammed. I haven't been able to get it to do one
thing ever since (so I took the OM-2 to the christening, after all).
Here are the 2n's symptoms:
Manual wind lever doesn't move farther than its normal empty way, or a few
millimeters farther at the most; when you reach the point where it would
normally engage and turn the wind mechanism, it is impossible to move it any
further (at least not without forcing it, which I did not want to try).
Shutter seems not to be cocked: release button can't be depressed, self
timer gets blocked when it reaches the point where it would actually depress
the shutter release button, mirror is down, glancing under the bottom edge
of the mirror the pattern on the curtain is visible.
Tried again with a winder; it hammers away, but nothing in the camera seems
to be moving. Tried all shutter speeds, to no avail.
Took off the bottom plate and looked inside, tried to gently move some of
the mechanics in there, which is as much as I dared to do - nothing.
Any ideas, anybody, as to what else I could try other than sending the body
off to be serviced?
Does anybody know what happened to the independent German Olympus service
outfit (in Hamburg, I think) - their web site is gone, all I found there is
a note that the previous owner gave up the site because of legal (trademark)
problems.
MtFbwy,
Volkhart
P.S.: As to the christening, I used the OM-2 with 85/2.0, Motor 1 and Fuji
Xtra 800 (no flash) and the OM-4 with 35-105/3.5-4.5, el cheapo winder and
Fuji Xtra 400, w/ Cullmann DC 36 SCA dedicated flash. The 85 mm turned out
to be a bit long as I had been told the minister would perform the actual
christening (you know, the real barbaric part where the cold water is poured
over the defenseless little child's head ;-) ) on the altar when actually he
just fetched the water and other utensils from the altar and did the baptism
much closer to the congregation. So I had only 30 to 500f the distance I
had planned for (I was able to move freely about, but the size and layout of
the room did not permit me to get very far away from what was going on in
its middle), and by that time I had used up most of the film in the other
camera and it was too late to switch lenses or load a new film. So I went
for close-ups of the priest, child and parents (just managed to get them
into the frame together), and of the people around. This was not quite the
way I had planned things, but fortunately the lighting, though not as bright
as in the altar area (around which there are large windows), was sufficient
for the 800 film, and one must be flexible. Hope I still got some pretty
good shots.
I also did a few shots in the church with the IS-1000, but this camera saw
its main use afterwards, during the "social gathering" part (afternoon
coffee, chatting and milling about, followed by dinner), which is a type of
shooting I find it ideal for (would be even better if the autofocus were a
bit faster).
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