Olympus Trip 35: Perfect for Trips

A classic camera with legendary status, makes taking SLR quality photos a breeze and is the perfect camera for taking out, a real grab and go camera.

After sorting out my box of negatives, I found some from when I first started film photography and back then I shot with colour film, whereas now I’m purely black and white.

I picked this camera up on ebay after hearing many many good things on flickr and reading reviews here. I can’t remember how much I paid, but it wasnt much, around £7 I believe. My sister has recently bought one for a trip (that word is going to be used a lot in this review). She’s going on and cost her £18, I think this increase in price is due to the fact more people are realising just how good this camera is.

When my camera arrived, I did all the rudimentary checks you should do with a Trip 35 and that’s half depress the shutter to make sure the aperture blades are moving freely and make sure that the famous red flag rises in the viewfinder. When not enough light is available in “A” mode, simply do this by looking through the finder and cover the lens and press the shutter. The camera passed all the best and was ready to go.

Here are the specs for the Olympus Trip 35 you probably know them already:

Focus: Manual by scale, visible through viewfinder.
Lens: 40mm f/2.8 Olympus D. Zuiko, 4 elements, three groups.
Close Focus: 2.9’ (0.9m).
Diaphragm: two bladed, diamond-shaped, stopping down to about f/22.
Shutter: 1/40 or 1/200, automatically selected. No bulb setting.
Meter: Selenium cell around lens. (automatically incorporates any filter factors.)
Exposure: Program automatic (A) and fixed-aperture for flash. Note: if you chose a large aperture for flash and work in bright light, it stops down accordingly but keeps the shutter speed at 1/40.
Film Speed: Third stops from ASA 25 – 400, except ASA 32.
Filter Size: 43.5mm screw in.
Flash: Hot shoe and PC terminal.
Size: 4.912" W x 2.861" H x 2.269" D (124.77mm W x 72.67mm H x 57.62mm D).
Weight: 13.77 oz. (390.5g).

Anyway, the following weekend me and my girlfriend and her friend went to Leeds, England. I took the Trip 35 with me, it fit nicely into one of my larger pockets due to the lens, and was easy to carry. I found the camera great to use on the street and hardly anyone notices it and if they do, they look intrigued. Here are some of the results from Leeds.

For my next roll, I decided to experiment a little. I used a roll of self redscaled film. It was iso 200 so I rated it at 50. Here are some results.

Overall, this camera is great and one everyone should own. Over 5 million were made so you will be able to pick one up, put any film init and it will perform fantastically. My two favourite things about it are the fact it doesn’t use batteries and well, it’s amazing zuiko lens. I believe the meter is accurate enough to use slide film and it is very consistent. Thanks for reading, keep shooting.

written by brandkow93 on 2012-05-17 #gear #street #review #colours #colour #olympus #olympus-trip-35 #david-bailey #sharp #redscaled