One of the blogs that I check out fairly often is
The Online Photographer has been running a series called Forgotten Cameras and that has got me thinking about some of my forgotten cameras. The Olympic Stylus Epic is one of those cameras for me. The first P&S camera that Julie and got after we got married and before we had Jenna was the original Olympus Stylus. It was small and easily fit into the diaper bag. No zoom lens just a 35mm F3.5 lens that focused to about 16 inches. We upgraded the office P&S camera from a
Nikon L35AF to the new Olympus Stylus Epic. The epic was an improved Stylus: the lens was a 35mm F2.8 that focused close and there was the addition of a spot meter as well as fill flash and a color sensor that would detect florescent light and fire the flash to correct the color balance.. I loved shooting B&W film in that camera and the spot meter was very useful at times. With the digital cameras we have today where we get immediate feed back it is hard for me to imagine shooting and having to guess the exposure with a spot meter or the cameras multi segment meter and just having to have faith that the photo would come out. I guess you had to think more about lighting and how it might be fooling the meter. Today you can just
Chimp and see if you screw things up. You can still buy the
Olympus Stylus Epic today which is a testament to its awesomeness.
When we used that Nikon L35AF at the office it took great photos as well although it was about twice the size of the Stylus Epic. The Nikon L35AF was the only camera that we would loan out for professors to take with them. We called it the PhD camera-that stands for Push Here Dummy. The camera was impossible to screw up. You can't say that about the digital cameras we have today.
I love shooting film. I've said that before, but its true and I love using the old film cameras and the look of film is hard to describe but I like it. My good friend Noah Darnell likes to shoot film and if you read his blog you will hear him talk about the look of his prime lenses. Well, these were all shot with a prime lens, but I bet you would never guess it in a 100 years.
I shot all of these photos with my Olympus Stylus Epic and its beautiful 35mm F2.8 prime lens. Yes I shot these images with a point and shoot camera. It is not about the camera its about seeing and light and the beauty God created for us to enjoy. If you have an old film P&S camera in a drawer somewhere I encourage you to get it out and go buy some b&w film and go find some beautiful flowers or beautiful people or whatever catches your attention and have some fun. This roll of film is just back from the lab and my stylus epic is reloaded and ready to go.
