Olympus IS-3

[Niner]

This was an Olympus bridge camera from 1992. It was the camera with the most features of the series, although it came third in line and there were several that came after it. It will do plenty of programmed things and has a lot of buttons and switches to do them all. I picked this one up for $20 including shipping. And then... because it was the only such camera I know of with a screw on 1.7 lens doubler I blew another $20 for the add on attachment lens. The lens just screws in like a lens filter. I might add the IS-3 was the only one of the series that had two attachment lenses made for it. There is another that will turn the 35mm wide end natural zoom to 28mm. These lenses won't fit any of the other cameras in the series as far as I can tell. Correction, IS-1 has add on lenses at least.

The attachment I got enlarges the magnification by 1.7 times the max built n zoom which results in turning 180mm to 306mm. So I took it for a run today.

The down side of the add on attachment would include it makes already an over large camera into a camera larger than most people would want to carry around as a regular thing. Another point is if you reduce the camera zoom with the attachment on under 100 meters on the normal camera scale it starts to make a keyhole around the center of the image and that affect increases as you go to 35mm on the normal scale. However, on the plus side, the images at max range seem to be without distortion with the attachment in place.

I made an offer on a wide angle attachment lens and the guy took my offer. I'll have to try this camera again when it arrives.

[Niner]

I just now received in the mail an Olympus IS-1. It was the first of the series from 1990. I was attracted to it because it came with a dedicated case and three attachable lenses. I was most curious about the add on lenses and how they would relate to the IS-3 that I have. The IS-1 camera itself, without any attachments, was made as a 35-135 zoom. The screw in attachments were 200, 28, and macro. The IS-3 attachable lenses go up to about 300 on the long end and the same as the IS-1 on the wide end at 28 and don't know if it had a macro or not, but I don't have one.

The controls on the IS-1 and IS-3 are about the same but laid out differently. And the most interesting thing is the barrel of the IS-1 is in slightly smaller diameter meaning the attachable lenses are also smaller and therefore not interchangeable.