I am returning to this post after 3 years as I have obtained another example of this camera in a job lot purchase.

First Example
Confession, this was not a junk find. I looked for this camera and bought a great one on eBay. But on returning to Japan I saw many in the junk bins for a couple of dollars. I actually paid about $40 for mine, I over paid, but I was still very happy with it. So why did I over pay? I really wanted a Yashica T4 or a Contax T2 basically anything with a T or 2, oh or the Olympus Mju 1 or 2 would also have been nice. But alas they were all out of my price range. Then I read a blog that suggested most of the Olympus Mju range were excellent, even the zooms. The lenses were sharp and the auto focus worked very well. So I plumped for one I could afford.

And it really was a great camera, though I have been a little unlucky with mine as you will see below. There is loads of information about this range of cameras online. Here are some technical details from the Olympus website. As you can see it has a fantastic zoom for a point and shoot, combined with the low f2.8 aperture it has a lot of punch. The best thing for me was the focus lock. If you look at this terribly processed photo you can see this demonstrated really well, excellent bokeh for a point and shoot.

This was actually the first 35mm point and shoot I had used for a long time and the first one in my new collection. I took it out on a day trip with the family to Elvaston Castle. Though I must say it looked more like a Manor house than castle.

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Of course there were more photos, but how many ducks do you want to see 🙂

The next outing for the camera was to a bar in Tokyo and a Christmas party with a used, expired film I got in a junk bin. Unfortunately, I didn’t know it was also exposed. Someone had taken flower pictures first. Bad luck or happy accident? Despite the flowers I could see that this camera worked very well. And as a nice bonus the 35mm, vintage appeal seemed to make people more comfortable about being photographed.

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Look at my tiny car! It looks like the other cars had a baby.

The next time I used the camera, the shop messed up the processing. So I converted the photos to black and white.

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Bad processing aside, I was very impressed with the close up photo of Hachiko and Professor Ueno. This camera actually handled the difficult lighting better than the more expensive digital camera I had with me.

Despite my love for this camera I eventually decided to sell it or give it away, I can’t really remember. I do remember I regretted it.

Second Example
Roll on three years and I obtained another example as part of a job lot purchase. There was already a film inside and the camera said only two exposures had been used. So I finished off the rest of the film in Blackpool. The film was badly damaged by time and came back a terrific purple colour. I converted these to black and white too. Funny, one day I will shoot a wonderful roll of film in this camera and it will come out perfectly. Though, I have to say no matter what you throw at this camera it seems to cope with it somehow.

Here are a few of the shots from the latest roll. Maybe I will finally keep this camera.

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