This is the second post for the weekend, another broken Olympus. The owner of the camera swears it worked before I got it. However, I never saw it working for more than a couple of shots. I gave up on the camera twice but finally loaded a roll in the hope that things would just work themselves out.

Apart from a little rust around the advance lever, it looked in fairly good condition. It had a nice weight to it and the lens looked clean. It didn’t need batteries as there was no light meter. To compensate for that, there was an exposure dial on the back of the camera. That gave you a rough estimate of EV values based on the ASA of the film, time of year, and weather conditions. The advance was heavy, but working without crunching. The issue I had was with the shutter. At times it worked perfectly, but every time I loaded a film it stopped. I would take the film out, look at the front and see it fire normally. So I would reload the film and it would stop again. I haven’t encountered anything like it. On this final attempt, you can see my photo as I look at the lens and see it working. It then took 2 shots before jamming again. At that point, I gave up and handed it back to the owner.

I decided to write this post anyway as it had worked for 3 shots, and it was a throw back to when I first started the blog…did or didn’t it work?

Though this example says 35S, it is in fact an ‘S ii’. The three windows on the front identify it as such. This great site shows you how to clean the rangefinder and states their example also has corrosion around the film advance. It was produced at the end of the 1950s and came in a few variants. This example has the Tower mark on the top and the f1.8 lens. In working condition, they can fetch quite a high price. I think it is worth the owner of this example to look into getting it fixed.

So how were my three successful shots?

Not too bad really. The rangefinder was accurate but dim, a bit like the person in the first shot…Yeap, that’s me thinking, “yes, it is working now”. The dog in the final shot is one of the sweetest, cuddliest I have met. Hopefully, I get to take more shots of her on another day.

So right now I would say this is a great camera if you can get a decent example. I won’t be looking for another one to try due to my GPS monitor.