╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄ ║ ║ █▀█ ▀▀██ ▄ ▄▄ ▀█ ▀▀█ ║ ║ █ ▄██▄ ██▀ █ ▄██ ▀█ ▄█▄▄ ▄██ █▄██ ║ ║ ▄█ █▄█▀ █▀ █ ▀ █ █ █▀ █▀ ██ █ ║ ║ ▄█▀█ ▀█▄▄▄▀█▄▄ █ ██▀█▀ █▄▄█ █▄▄ █ █ ║ ║ ▀█▄█ ▀▀▀ ██▀ ▀▀ ▄ ▀▀▀ ▀ █▄ ║ ║ ▀ ▀▀ ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝
out of the three recent purchases of 22+ year old cameras, the last camera i'll be posting about is also the first of the three i purchased, the olympus e-1. this camera has had more of a boost in popularity than the others i've purchased, due to the kodak ccd sensor contained within.
note to any readers: the first several following paragraphs are going to be me rambling on about the buying experience and potential risks taken when buying used gear. consider it to be me venting any left-over frustrations.
the one i bought happened before mercari restructured[/reverted] their buyer fees a few days after 2025 began. the one i found was listed at $180, offered the seller $150, and the seller agreed to this offer. now, $150 with ~$14 in shipping and ~$14 in sales tax would be a decent deal, with current olympus e-1 prices, for what looked to be a mint condition camera. _but_ if anyone's not familiar, mercari's old fee structure was along the lines of "hey, let's just have the buyer pay for all the fees that the seller would normally take care of." so i ended up paying $20 in 'service' and 'payment processing' fees. and iirc, these are percentage-based, which means the fees are rather astronomical if one were looking to buy a more pricey item, like $800 or $1000+. anyways, grand total landed me at almost exactly $200, which was about the price that these camera bodies were going for on ebay, in a very similar condition (mint/near mint), prior to shipping and tax being factored in.
i received the camera, checked the shutter count and was surprised to see that the camera only had 385 shots taken in its lifetime. after the few-second wow-factor wore off, i became confused and concerned about this. this isn't like my nikon d2h, where the extremely low shutter count could be attributed to its very late production serial number, and probably ended up being deadstock as a result. tested the camera shutter-- works. inserted a card-- did not work, "no card detected" (couldn't even perform an in-camera card format). tried another card, nope. tried a third and fourth card-- no good. these cards are all functioning cards in various sizes-- 1gb, 2gb, 8gb, 16gb. something was obviously wrong.
initially, i decided to file for a return+refund. but within a couple of minutes, i found that this was either going to be a difficult uphill battle or just not possible, due to mercari's return policy. if you look up their return policy, they basically want the buyer to essentially take photos of the unboxing process, starting with the original shipping label, then taking photos of the packing material, items included, etc. the problem for me was the original shipping label-- by habit, i almost immediately peel off and destroy/shred the shipping label, sometimes before even opening the box. in other words, i screwed myself at the very first step of the return process.
so, i decided to do the only other option and attempt a repair. first, i spent a few minutes thinking what the hell could be wrong, and most of those few minutes i was just staring inside the card slot, with a flash light. then, i _think_ i spotted the problem. was difficult to confirm because of the limited viewing angle of the card slot, but it looked like a pin was recessed (rather than the more common problem of a bent pin). and this recessed pin would be also the same pin that's used to relay a card-detect signal, according to a compact flash card pin-out diagram.
a few minutes later, i began dismantling the camera. i reached the compact flash card slot, and my suspicion was correct. i found that previously mentioned pin to be bent, recessed, as well as having a broken solder joint. the pin bent so much that it made contact with an adjacent pin and broke its solder joint, too. and there was also a third pin that was slightly recessed (which only took a few seconds to resolve). i was able to carefully straighten the initial pin, and resolder it and the adjacent pin back onto their respective contact pads.
basically had to put the camera back together test, as there were like 10 ribbon/flex cables that have been disconnected in the disassembly process. i reassembled the camera, carefully inserted a card, turned on and the repair ended up being a success!
looking back, i should've put a drop of super glue or epoxy on the repaired pin solder joints, just for reinforcement. however i don't plan on removing the card, and instead just going to use the camera's usb port to transfer photos. if those solder joints do break again (very hard to tell if it was a good solder job or not because of how tiny and tucked in the pins+pads are), i should be able to disassemble the camera with while the card is still inserted and resolder (and apply super glue).
moving onto the post-repair camera experience. it's a delightful camera. ergonomics are great and the menu layout is very simple compared to what you'd on cameras today. iirc, the olympus e-1 is the first dslr body made for the digital platform, as in all dslrs prior were basically film camera bodies with digital guts stuffed inside. the shutter is probably the most damped shutter i've ever experienced on a dslr. acoustically, it's almost silent, and vibrational shutter slap is non-existent.
color rendition is nice, but i knew that already. not just from the recent popularity surge, but one of my friends shot with an olympus e300 for a few years, back when they were still available new. and i still remember the photos of some cars and sunsets he's taken with that camera- how vivid, yet still very natural looking, the colors were.
i've committed to using vintage manual focus zuiko lenses mounted with an om-mount to four-thirds lens adapter. going this route yields a few potential issues. the first being metering-- out of the three metering modes available, only center-weighted metering is usable/the most consistent. there's also no way for the camera and/or adapter to control the aperture of these lenses, so all metering must be down through stop-down metering.
the second issue is focusing-- the adapter isn't spaced 'perfectly', where focusing to infinity is just that. instead, you can focus past infinity. this isn't a problem if you manually focus at a subject through the viewfinder. but for me, i'm typically someone who almost exclusively uses zone-focusing, as i'm fine with having 'acceptable' focus rather than 'pristine/perfect' focus. however, the issue mentioned causes the distance scales on the lens to shift a bit. it'll be more of a minor issue once i get used to it.
a couple of other issues: that the stable aperture range is limited, things get wonky when the aperture is wide-open/too large, or if the aperture is too small. this really shouldn't be an issue in normal daylight. also, the four-thirds crop factor of 2x is very narrow. my 24mm lens turns into an equivalent of 48mm focal length. again, this should be a minor issue once adapted to it, but could end up pretty pricey if i ever want to purchase an om-mount manual focus lens that allows for a wider fov.
that second photo initially had the foreground slightly out of focus, due to the issue mentioned above with the shifted distance scale. i was able to apply a hefty amount of sharpening to the foreground and somewhat resolve the issue, surprisingly without things looking gross/over-sharpened.
--
bix