Newest C&R rangefinder Olympus 35RC

[Niner]

The Olympus 35RC is one of the most desirable film rangefinders from what I read. A true camera Curio and relic made 50 years ago. I picked one up off of ebay for a total of $14.35 and $8.85 of that was the shipping charge. It's small and pocketable, compared to to the Yashica GSM. And like the GSM uses an obsolete mercury battery which can be replaced with a 3.5v battery that is a replacement for the PX625 mercury. This battery adds another $5 to the cost.

It's in the size of a good pocket digital as you see in the photos next to a Sony digital. It has a fully auto setting and a manual setting which allows you to choose an aperture and has 6 shutter speeds plus B.

When you buy one of these old camera's it s all a crap shoot...particularly these camera's with electronic shutters. So I didn't know what I had until I got the battery and put it in. And.... lucked out. Everything seems to be working. Just need to run a roll of film through it.

The biggest draw back is that the window area that you line up the image to set the range is a bit small and hard to see for old eyes. But... it also has range marks on the lens ring which should work as well.

[DuncaninFrance]

That's a nice camera Robert. Reminds me of my PenEE ( which is now broken beyond repair ). Olympus made great cameras in those days.............

[Niner]

Got a battery that would work and loaded up some Tmax 10o and took the Olympus 35 RC with me to the ball park yesterday. Tried the "A" and the manual settings. Even tried the self timer. Everything seemed to work...but the focus section is tiny where one sandwiches the image until it is all in line and showing that the range is correct. With old eyes it's not an easy thing so I used the range marks as much as the viewer. The camera won't take a photo in "A " unless the shutter speed and aperture are of a usable combination. The manual mode shows a shutter speed and your chosen aperture but doesn't inspire confidence in correct choices. However taking some scenes with A and then manual produced decent enough results but I think the Auto might correct a little for otherwise marginal choices in speed and depth of field.

[Niner Delta]

Seems to take nice B&W photos, is it harder to develop color film, or too expensive, or......???
Just curious....

Obviously I'm photographically challenged...........

[Niner]

B&W is easy to develop. The hardest part is getting the film onto the developing reel inside the dark bag. Then about 8 minutes in D76 developer with some agitation every so often.... time depends on temperature of fluid...warmer is quicker. Then about 30 seconds in stop bath. Then about ...5 minutes....Tmax is supposed to be up to 10 minutes...in fixer. Longer doesn't hurt anything. Then a wash in plain water for 30 minutes or less depending on how well the water is circulating. Then you get a clothespin, or one of those clips you close potato chip bags with, and hang it up to dry. ...I use the pull on a ceiling fan to clip to. If I'm doing a roll of 36 exposures I clip another bag clip to the bottom of the strip of film so the film doesn't curl up as it dries. Then... you need a scanner that will scan negatives as an added feature. I use an Epson V600. It's all pretty simple. If it were difficult I probably wouldn't be smart enough to do it.

There are some color kits for color negatives but I haven't tried color. I think color is a little less forgiving than B&W on developing times and temperatures.... but not altogether sure on this.

[Niner Delta]

Because you change reels in a bag, I'm guessing you don't have a darkroom with a red light like
in the movies. What about a red light in a closed room at night..............

[Niner]

Vern, a dark room would be necessary, or rather a room with some dark would be necessary, for making prints by hand. Lots of stuff that wouldn't fit in a bag... like enlarger, trays with chemicals large enough to lay the print paper in without curling up. You have to see the image as it is projected onto the photo paper so you know it's in focus and you have to dodge the exposure to adjust what parts you want to be lighter. It's a step I don't take anymore because computer scanning the negative is so much easier and quicker. And.... if I want a print I can get a print by uploading the digital image to a company online and they can print it out cheap and mail it to me.

The things great artists like Ansel Adams used to do to their negatives in the dark room made excellent prints truly masterful beyond the image itself. Now days with photo software many people knock themselves out turning digital images into images that the camera didn't. Duncan has some friends at a site that are all into that sort of thing and who take themselves very seriously making "digital art" turning photos into something that looks like an oil painting and such as that. Good people.... it's just not my thing though.