The Stylus Epic

 I decided I really needed to put more film through my Olympus Stylus Epic so I loaded a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400 and carried the camera in my pocket for a week, with walks through Old Town and the UNM campus.

Dane Smith Hall

A lawn art statue representing the UNM Lobo mascot

I had not been on the campus in some time and it seemed a lot bigger than I remembered it.  I visit the Plaza Vieja in Albuquerque's Old Town at least weekly and it is much less of a challenge to my limited mobility. 

As usual on a Friday morning there was a long line of restored classic cars in front of the church.

1938 Chev

upholstery talk

All of the cars are ones I had seen and photographed before, except for the little blue Mercury Comet, perhaps the most modest model to carry the Mercury name; I think this was an early one.

The camera seems to work perfectly.  Its only issue is a small light leak, and a narrow stip of electrical tape easily deals with that.  The Stylus Epic is even smaller than the compact Infinity Stylus and the 4-element 2.8/35mm lens is a bit more sophisticated than the earlier mju's 3.5/35mm, though I don't see a significant difference in the quality of the pictures between the two.  I actually prefer the handling of the earlier Infinity Stylus, but it may be I am just more familiar with the older camera because I have put a lot of film through it over the last fifteen years.

Olympus Stylus Epic

 I took my Olympus Stylus Epic on a daytrip to Cerrillos New Mexico recently.  

The film was some old Fuji X-tra 400 which I had found at the bottom of my refrigerator.  I think this is only the third time I have used the camera since I picked it up for three bucks at a local thrift store.  The first roll had shown that the camera was leaking light through the top edge of the back.  I stuffed some black yarn into the back, trying to stop up the leak, but that did not work.  This time, I resorted to a couple strips of black electrician's tape and that got the job done.

In trying to figure out how to best deal with the light leak I googled "mju2 light leaks" and found that the problem was quite a common complaint.  It appears the rubber seals on the back as well as that around the lens become dried out.  I saw some suggestions that a rubber-restoring product available in car parts stores might correct the problem.  I'm happy enough for now with the black tape fix.

If you want to acquire a Stylus Epic and are not lucky as I was to find one in a junk store,  they can typically be had for $300 to $400 on ebay.  I even saw one go for $700.  It is a handy little camera, but paying those prices seems insane.

The mju cameras

I recently came across a couple Olympus Stylus cameras at a local thrift shop, an Olympus Infinity Stylus (mju) and an Olympus Stylus Epic (mju2).  The prices were $5 for the mju and $3 for the mju2.

The mju showed a lot of use, but it had a battery and it lit up when I opened the sliding front door -- which I suppose accounted for its higher price.  The mju2 looked nice; a new battery started it up too.  

I loaded a roll in the Stylus Epic the next morning and managed to get through all 36 exposures on a roll of Fuji 200.  The camera seemed to be working nearly perfectly, though the shutter button was a little over-sensitive.  When I scanned the negatives the pictures looked good except for small light leaks in some of the images.  A bit of black tape near the viewfinder will likely solve the leak problem.

The mju2 commands ridiculous prices these days, so I was pleased to have found one that only needed a little attention to work.  On closely examining the pictures, though, I am not convinced that the camera makes pictures that are significantly superior to what I get from the mju that I have been shooting for the past ten years.  To test that idea, I finished up another roll of Fuji 200 in the older mju on a walk in the neighborhood.  I shot several of the same scenes as the day before and the light was quite similar.

The f/2.8, 35mm lens on the Stylus Epic is clearly a more sophisticated design than that of the f/3.5 lens on the older Inifity Stylus.  However, a search on the web about the newer camera turned up some support for my judgment based on my informal test.  What I found was that complaints about light leaks in the newer model are very common.  It appears that the rubber ring light seal in the Stylus Epic is not as robust as the seals in the older camera.  Additionally, I found a couple references to the idea that the auto-focusing algorithm for the Stylus Epic leaned toward wide open exposures.  So, even though the Stylus Epic has a lot of present day enthusiasts, I think there is good reason to be skeptical of any real superiority to the older Infinity Stylus.