Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Exercising the Olympus 35RC

I spent the week carrying around my Olympus 35RC.  It is a camera I have had for a long time, but I haven't often put film in it.  I think I bought this one in Las Cruces about fifteen years ago for around $40.  I subsequently found a couple others in thrift stores.  

The 35RC was built for Mercury batteries, but the meter is easily adjusted to use available 1.5 volts ones.  The five-element 2.8/42mm lens is sharp and contrasty. 








Andrew Yue has a nice review of the 35RC's features and operation.
Click here to see all my posts and pictures about the Olympus 35RC.

9 comments:

Kodachromeguy said...

This one is in great shape; excellent exposures! I get the impression from looking at the 'bay that most 35 RCs for sale today are ruined from battery leakage or other issues. You are lucky to have a fully functional example. Do you need to find the odd Olympus 43.5mm filters?

Mike said...

I think I put new seals in mine as well as adjusting the meter. Never tried using filters with it. It is really a nice little travel camera which is easy to shoot. It was one of three cameras that I took on our trip to Greece.

Mike said...

It truly is the epitome of the compact 35mm rangefinder and I love my well-worn, not to say battered 35rc. But let's not tell any more peeps about it, shall we... hush hush!
Levity aside, reading your blog for a decade I have found a fellow spirit.

Mike said...

Mikes Unite!

kevinthephotographer said...

The 35RC is my current favourite camera - I have 3 of them. They have varying degrees of working rangefinders and meters but I just use them as scale focus and manual exposure, with no battery needed. A yellow filter work’s nicely.

Mike said...

I only have one at present and it works quite well in all regards. I did find a couple more in thrift stores which also needed only a little attention to produce nice images.

James said...

One of the father's favourite cameras the Olympus 35RC. I wish I still had it, I really do! Unsophisticated and delivers genuinely very good results.

I have had (and still have) many 35mm cameras from Olympus to Leica, and as much as folk bleat on about 'lens quality', there is an under pinning issue that escapes them all - film flatness. The same problem for all 35mm film users, including Leitz.

Regards, and thanks for your interesting blog!

Mike said...

I agree that lens quality is but one of the factors in image sharpness. For instance, shooting with a small, fixed aperture can produce very good image sharpness even in simple cameras. That said, all the Olympus lenses do seem to be of high quality.

James said...

Hi Mike,

Yes, talking about Olympus lenses - my father also had an Olympus RD 35mm. This had a very good lens on it. However, the lens assembly internally must have been complex as it eventually jammed 3 decades later. Such a pity as it was a little beauty!