The evolution of the Olympus M System:

In the last of the series, I wrote about being thrilled to have found a classic Olympus camera in Japan, the 1963 PEN-F. My real hope though, was to acquire an icon from my youth, an OM-1 ...and I did. I found my OM-1 at Camera Naniwa, near the Kawaramachi Station, in Kyoto. Except for a small dent on the top of pentaprism enclosure, it was in very good condition. The store manager assured me the camera and the attached f2.8 g.Zuiko 35mm lens were both in perfect working condition. For only $120 USD, it became mine.

I enjoyed doing comparison shooting with the analog and digital PEN-F and decided to do the same with the OM-1 and OM-D. However, I thought I'd wait until I upgraded my OM-D EM-1 to the mkii model. I've had the EM-1 mkii for a while now and it was time to go out on a shoot with the past and present OM series cameras. First, a bit of history and background on why I like this camera series so much.

Following on the success of the PEN half-frame cameras, the full-frame 35mm OM-1 was the next act for Yoshihisa Maitani. Maitani's initial design parameters used earlier 35mm Leica rangefinders as a guide. Their compactness and quietness was considered an asset by Oscar Barnak, the father of the 35mm photography. Maitani, who shot with a Leica IIIf in his youth agreed. With that in mind, Maitani challenged the prevailing wisdom that SLRs had to be "big, heavy, and noisy". He felt Olympus should improve on contemporary designs, believing a small, light, and quiet professional SLR system would be an improvement on what was being offered by other manufacturers. Even now, this debate sounds all to familiar. Then as now, this was also not without it's marketing and technical hurdles. It took a while for Maitani to convince his colleagues that a compact SLR would be a market success. Once he did, it took a number of years to overcome the design challenges. In the end Maitani and his team created a mechanical masterpiece. My favorite story is the design of the shutter winding mechanism, which ultimately led to the speed selector being placed on the lens mounting ring. Brilliant thinking that provided a great user interface, adjusting shutter, aperture, and focus with one hand.

There are other interesting design stories, and if you're interested in learning more, I suggest reading the Unofficial Olympus OM Sales Information File and the Maitani-Olympus site.

Over the years Olympus has maintained their philosophy in designing small, light, and quiet professional cameras. Not factoring the grip on the OM-D EM-1, it is the same physical size as the OM-1, and therefore the same size as the Leica rangefinders that inspired Yoshihisa Maitani. The OM-D EM-1 is 13 grams lighter than the OM-1 and not only has a quiet shutter, but also a silent shutter mode. Olympus has done all this while continuing to advance the state-of-the-art of photography with new innovations, still packed into well designed small, professional cameras. Olympus was the first to develop a new Pro DSLR system with matching Zuiko lenses purpose built for digital sensors, first to introduce an ultrasonic cleaning system for sensor dust removal, first to embrace mirrorless camera bodies, first to provide in body image stabilization systems, currently working in 5 axis and able to sync with 2 axis stabilizers in Zuiko Pro telephoto lenses. One of the latest advancements on the OM-D EM-1 mkii is "Hi-Res Shot" mode. Using the in-body IS system, the camera captures multiple images then merges them into a single 50Mpix frame. I thought I'd base my OM-1 to OM-D comparison on this feature. Using the same rationale from my PEN-F test, again I loaded Kodak Portra 400 into the OM-1. On an sunny blustery afternoon, I set out to Fort Point to shoot with both cameras.

a few images from Fort Point, shot with the OM-1 and g.zuiko 35mm lens

Both cameras were a joy to use. The air dampened mirror on the OM-1 was quieter than other 35mm SLRs I've used. Quieter even than the 35mm PEN-F. But the mirrorless EM-1 using the mechanical shutter had no mirror slap and was quieter still. Manual focusing of the g.Zuiko 35mm lens was smooth and easy, but the auto focus on the EM-1 was quicker. Looking at the results later I found both were equally accurate. On the OM-1, it was nice to use my left hand to adjust shutter speed and aperture. The EM-1 I has the same single handed functionality, instead with your right hand, where forefinger sets aperture and thumb sets shutter speed. It was a fun afternoon shooting OM film and digital. My last photos were tripod mounted shots of the Golden Gate bridge. Using a tripod I could compare the same scene from both cameras using the Hi-res shot mode on the EM-1 mkii.

 Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point, OM-D EM-1 mkii, hi-res shot mode

The salesman in Kyoto was correct. The used OM-1 system was fully functional and yielded perfectly exposed and sharp images on the negative. Having learned about the limitations of my V500 during my 120 film test, I initially thought I'd have the film scanned on an Imacon scanner. A few weeks before though, I read about folks using sharp macro lenses on DSLRs to digitize negatives. I liked that idea. I have a m.Zuiko 60mm f2.8 macro and could do the scans at home for no additional cost. Once everything was setup on the light table, I set the EM-1 mkii to hi-res shot mode again, just as it was for the digital capture. Hence, the digitized film image would be 8160x5385, the same resolution as the digital capture. Below are 100% crops from the GG Bridge framing shown above.

Portra 400: Epson v500 @ 6400 dpi Portra 400: EM-1 mkii hi-res @ 50Mpix RAW iso 400: EM-1 mkii hi-res @ 50Mpix

Certainly the v500 is not acceptable for precision scanning of full frame 35mm film. The digitized negative from EM-1 mkii is surprisingly good. So good that I don't think I'd ever bother scanning 35mm film on an Imacon. As you can see though, the digital capture from the EM-1 mkii is the cleanest and the sharpest.

In the end, I enjoy having an OM-1 now and continue to marvel at it's design and technical achievement. But, it's the further evolved Olympus M, the OM-D EM-1 mkii that will continue to shoot with.