While I was in Japan, I took an old Olympus OM10 with me to try out some photos. The thing was a gift for my birthday from a friend, Jo. I did manage to knock out a few snaps, partly filling two rolls of film.

The OM10, back in 1979, was a camera that had cutting edge electronics that would adjust the shutter speed automatically according to the amount of light in the shot. Of course, we have cameras that do this in their sleep these days, but the thing is fascinating. I wanted to own a film SLR for a long time. And this was a really great gift.

This is a camera I thought I broke. Only after receiving it, Jo informed me that the shutter might have been a little sticky. So I looked at a few instructions on the internet and had a go at cleaning the camera. After some isopropol and a few winds and clicks, things seemed okay. And then – the camera started making some strange noises, beeping and buzzing. It sounded hellishly bad. The shutter was also not closing properly, staying open for a long time. I felt like a fucking idiot for trying it late at night and before even being able to road test the thing. Not being able to cry over the matter, I turned to eBay and bid on another camera that was exactly the same model.

The next morning, I tested the camera again and it seemed to work fine. No weird beeps or buzzing. No latency in the shutter speed. It all seemed to resolve. I even had another camera rocking up to my doorstep in a couple of days. So what the hell. The new camera had the manual adaptor, which would allow the user to appropriately control the shutter speed for more expert shots.

I still took the camera that was gift overseas, only because that is what I originally set out to do. I didn’t take a whole lot of photos with camera, because I didn’t want to spend my entire trip bogged down with just taken photos. So I only took shots of things I thought were important or interesting at the time.

Here are some samples of the OM10 photos to show just how well they turned out.