Complete newcomer - Olympus 35 RC bought.

Messages
28
Name
Neil
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi!
Aside from some disposables used on tours, I have purchased my first 35mm camera - as the title would suggest it's an Olympus 35 RC.
I have been doing some reading (the exposure triangle, threads on here etc) and trying to learn a few bits so that I don't waste too many films!
If anyone has any tips on the camera (I'm still not clear on how to decide which shutter speed to select), resources for idiots etc, I'd be hugely grateful.

I do have a few questions, which I'm unclear on (sorry they are so basic)
1) What do you do with your film? Do you get all exposures printed? Just get the negatives and scan yourself or get the scans? If you're scanning yourself, why wouldn't you just get the shop to do it?
2) I bought the following films;
Kodak Professional Tmax ISO 100 Black and White
Kodak ColorPlus 200 ISO
I think I really didn't need to buy professional quality(!) but otherwise are these films broadly suitable? Any recommendations would be great!

I'll be using the auto aperture setting to start with until I fully understand the dynamics between shutter speed, ISO and aperture.

Thanks for making it to the end!
 
Hi Neil,

Welcome to the slightly crazy world of film photography!

So here are my thoughts - I am confident a responsible adult will be along in a minute to point out the errors.

1. You will learn more from manual mode than any automatic mode
2. Have low expectations for the first several films, and you may be pleasantly surprised.
3. It's boring, but try to keep some notes, it will help you learn.
4. Keep the costs down (see point 2)
5. To begin with, a commercial develop and scan will do you fine. The lowest quality scan should be fine. It just needs to enough to work out what worked, and what didn't. Later on, after several films, you may want to go for a higher quality scan.
6. Try to limit the number of variables; stick to a film and a processing company.
7. It you really get keen, you could develop your own film and scan the negatives yourself, but that is a lot of work and quite some money.

Good luck! Enjoy the ride, and post the results.
 
Hi Neil, welcome to TP!

I have a couple of 35RCs and they are fab cameras!

Some tips from me:

- Make sure the ring is set to "off" when you're not using it so the battery doesn't drain.
- I used blu-tack to make a standard hearing aid battery work and hold it in place. There are fancy adapters out there but mine was fine with blu tack.
- Changing the ISO is a "dial" on the front of the lens.
- The meter can be "off" with age. Both my 35s expose under. One by 1 stop and one by 2. If you find this happening, you can compensate by just using the next ISO down, so set the ISO to 200 and shoot the film as a 400 speed film (or vice versa if the meter is over exposing). Other than wasting a roll of film to find that out, the best way is to compare to a digital camera on the same scene. to see if they give the same readings.

How To Do That
For example, assuming you have ISO 200 speed film in the camera... Set your shutter speed to 1/125, point the camera at the wall (preferably outside and well lit), set the aperture ring to "A" and half press the shutter. You should see the needle swing across the aperture ranges in the viewfinder and stop on an aperture. Let's say it stops on 8. What that means is that the correct exposure for that scene is ISO 200, 1/125sec and f/8. (If it doesn't move, you might be switched off or the battery might be no good or not making contact. If it just keeps going, that means it's too dark and you need to try a slower shutter speed. Drop down to 1/60 and try again, then 1/30 if that's no good) Once you've done that, get a digital camera, lightmeter (there are apps), or another film camera with a meter and point it at the same scene. Set the shutter speed to 1/125 and the ISO to 200. If it gives you the same reading you're laughing. If it gives you something completely different you know your meter is out on the 35RC. The difference between the two results will tell you how far out it is. Come back here with those results if you want to know more...

It really is a fantastic little camera with a great lens.

1. I develop my own B&W and get Filmdev to do my colour. Filmdev offer a "small" scan as standard which is good enough for internet use. I like to print quite big though so scan my own because big scans can cost quite a bit of money. If you're printing small or just putting on the internet though, you should be fine.

2. If you're in the UK 100 and 200 speed film is going to be a struggle because the light is quite poor this time of year. You don't mention what sort of photography you're doing but I'm assuming outside and general daytime stuff. This time of year, with gloomy overcast days, 400 or 800 is a better speed. ColorPlus 200 is a great general purpose film. For black & white though I'd recommend either Ilford HP5+ (really nice film for the money) or Kentmere 400 or Fomapan 400 if you're worried about cost.

Welcome to TP!
 
If anyone has any tips on the camera (I'm still not clear on how to decide which shutter speed to select),
Just noticed this bit. The 35RC is more of a shutter priority camera where you select the shutter speed and the camera (in A mode) selects the aperture. Or you can manually select shutter and aperture. The only way to know what to select though is to "Know" the Sunny 16 rules which takes a fair bit of experience, or have a light meter. But because the 35 has a meter built in, that's kinda redundant.

There is no setting where you choose the aperture and the camera chooses the shutter speed.
 
That's very useful indeed, thanks very much. I'll see if I can swap the film before they deliver, what you say makes lots of sense.
I have a sony digital camera (well my wife has....) I'll do some light comparisons. I need to get my head around film speed and shutter speed.
I'll be photographing all sorts, city, outdoors/nature, people (lots of the family I expect), I have always liked the idea of photography and enjoy taking pictures but digital has never really caught my imagination.
 
FilmDev is a good suggestion - they do a very decent job for not much money (I think even the larger scans are reasonable):


They can't process your Tmax at the moment, but they can process Ilford XP2 (a black and white film that is compatible with the chemistry they use for colour film). This is a versatile B&W film that is nominally ISO 400, but it has such a broad exposure latitude you can treat it as if it were anything between ISO 50 and ISO 800.
 
If you have modern phone there a few light meter apps which appear to be accurate, I use one called Light meter, it costs £2.10 but it works very well.
 
I always set the aperture to A and select shutter speed on my RC. It seems to lend itself to that approach.

As mentioned above, make sure aperture ring is set to OFF when not in use or it will drain the battery.
 
I learned photography using film. I made every mistake in the book. I actually think using a digital camera in manual is a better way to learn photography basics because it is a) cheaper and b) immediate which makes it much easier to review your results. That is not to say don't try with film, but do try and make notes about the settings used because you will probably have forgotten them by the time your pictures come back from the lab. If you can't work out why a particular image didn't work, you will learn nothing.
 
BTW welcome to the mad, mad world of film photography, and the very best and most helpful bit of TP!

Like others, I tend to get Filmdev to dev/scan my colour films (colour negative, aka C41, not colour slide/transparency, AKA E6). They also do XP2, which is an excellent, slightly contrasty but very versatile black and white film using a "colour" emulsion that gets devved in C41 chemicals.

I tend to dev and scan my own black and white film (not XP2), at least partly because I can, because it's quite cheap, and because getting labs to dev/scan your black and white turns out to be quite expensive these days. Have a look at the nifty price comparator for an idea... but please note, prices are out of date as I haven't checked it for a while. I believe postage has just gone up again, too.

There's a thread about devving your own and a thread about scanning listed in the "resources" sticky at the top of this forum, too.

Hope that helps, and again, welcome...
 
Thanks Chris, a lot to go out there! I never thought of poundland for film, what a great idea. Wilko too I expect.
Do any supermarkets still have film developing?
 
Thanks, is there anything else worth looking out for in bargain shops?

erm unless you could find some remote shop that has some out of date film in their store room (below old prices because OOD)..even film at boots sales has dried up and bought quite a few at 10p a roll in the past. Might be worth looking in charity shops as a donator might have had a clear out of camera stuff, although I haven't seen any film in the ones I visit.
 

I've been using this for a while now, admittedly in 120 not 35mm, and I like it. It's a good price and a nice, contrasty, fine grained film.
 
Last edited:
Cool. Hopefully I have a start point now. Lets see how it goes!
I need to understand ISO now, I *think* I have at lease a basic understanding of shutter speed and aperture, but ISO is still confounding me somewhat.
 
Cool. Hopefully I have a start point now. Lets see how it goes!
I need to understand ISO now, I *think* I have at lease a basic understanding of shutter speed and aperture, but ISO is still confounding me somewhat.
It's best to start with the basics and consider ISO to be a constant for each roll of film. Google exposure triangle or try and pick up a copy of Understanding Exposure
even though it's primarily aimed at digi shooters it give a great insight into the way exposure works in relation to aperture, shutter speed and ISO/film speed.
 
On exposure, if I may stick my oar in, think of it as being like filling a paddling pool with water using a garden hose. On this analogy, the correct exposure is equivalent to having a required depth of water.

The diameter of the hose determines how much water gets in per second, the time you leave the tap on controls the total volume, and the area of the pool controls what the depth actually is after this time. Converting to photographic exposure, the diameter is the aperture, the time is the shutter speed, and the ISO is the area of the pool.

ISO is a measure of the sensitivity of the film; the higher the ISO, the less exposure you need to give the same result on the film. Just as the bigger the pool, the more water you have to put in to reach a specified depth. ISO is arithmetic - double the number means twice as sensitive and therefore only half the light needed to give a correct exposure. The last two words, when amplified, are the only complicating factor in my opinion. Because, like the depth of the water in the pool, it can be a subjective decision depending on what you want to achieve.
 
Last edited:
Cool. Hopefully I have a start point now. Lets see how it goes!
I need to understand ISO now, I *think* I have at lease a basic understanding of shutter speed and aperture, but ISO is still confounding me somewhat.

Don't worry, this isn't very difficult and you've had good advice from other posters. FWIW, my first camera was a Brownie 127 something or other, then my father gave me an old folding Kodak that used 120 film. This was fully manual, even the shutter had to be cocked by hand for each shot. I hadn't a clue what I was doing but the owner of the local camera shop took pity on me and explained the basics of film speed, exposure, focus and how to adjust the settings. I was about 10 or 11 at the time and I got the hang of it pretty quickly, so I'm sure it'll all make sense quite soon! :)

I bought a 35RC when I was living in Hong Kong back in the '70s. It was an excellent little camera, but I threw it away - with the matching flash unit - during a house move about ten years ago because I thought I'd never want to use it again. I somewhat regret that now.
 
Cool. Hopefully I have a start point now. Lets see how it goes!
I need to understand ISO now, I *think* I have at lease a basic understanding of shutter speed and aperture, but ISO is still confounding me somewhat.
You might want to play with this dSLR simulator, which shows how these three parameters need to be balanced to give a good exposure, how shutter speed controls motion blurring, how aperture changes apparent depth of field, and how higher ISO means more 'noise':
With film, of course, you see grain rather than digital noise, and the effect is even more noticeable. Many modern digital cameras will give clean images at ISO 3200, but that would be a very grainy film, probably the highest speed (light sensitivity) you can buy. The other big difference is that once the film is loaded you have to finish it or rewind prematurely if you want to (say) take fine grain pictures in bright light. With digital, ISO is just a setting you can change at any time.

You'll see that there is more than one way of achieving a 'correct' exposure. Which you choose depends on the effect you want - e.g., choosing a higher ISO film that is more sensitive to light adds grain, but that can sometimes help make an atmospheric photo, especially in black and white. Lowering the shutter speed when your subject is moving can blur its motion, but that can be used to give an impression of speed. Opening up the aperture narrows the depth of field, but that can be used to isolate a subject against a blurred background, etc.
 
Last edited:
Cool. Hopefully I have a start point now. Lets see how it goes!
I need to understand ISO now, I *think* I have at lease a basic understanding of shutter speed and aperture, but ISO is still confounding me somewhat.

I think that's because it is confusing!

The lightmeter apps are useful because you can point your phone at difference scenes and see the impact it has on the settings. You usually choose 2 settings and the lightmeter picks the other one. If you point it at (for example) an indoor scene, and set the ISO to 200 (your color plus film speed) then put the shutter speed to 1/60sec (about as slow as you want to go so you don't get blur from shaky hands) it will show you what aperture you need. Probably in a normal lit room that would be f/1.4 ish which the 35RC doesn't have. If you push your ISO to 3200, you can see the aperture change accordingly - probably f/5.6 which is within reach of the 35RC.
 
Thanks Retune, that canon sim is fascinating. I'll be playing with this a LOT!
 
ISO is a measure of the sensitivity of the film; the higher the ISO, the less exposure you need to give the same result on the film. Just as the bigger the pool, the more water you have to put in to reach a specified depth. ISO is arithmetic - double the number means twice as sensitive and therefore only half the light needed to give a correct exposure. The last two words, when amplified, are the only complicating factor in my opinion. Because, like the depth of the water in the pool, it can be a subjective decision depending on what you want to achieve.

Interesting, and in terms I understand!
I had envisaged the shutter to be an orifice plate allowing energy flow. The aperture is the size of the orifice, the shutter a valve which dictates the amount of energy through the orifice (assuming constant flow).
Whilst I appreciate the advice on ISO, I'd like to know what different ISO settings do to the actual camera's behaviour.
 
Interesting, and in terms I understand!
I had envisaged the shutter to be an orifice plate allowing energy flow. The aperture is the size of the orifice, the shutter a valve which dictates the amount of energy through the orifice (assuming constant flow).
Whilst I appreciate the advice on ISO, I'd like to know what different ISO settings do to the actual camera's behaviour.
if your camera is set to manual changing the iso will have no effect on your camera’s behaviour
 
Whilst I appreciate the advice on ISO, I'd like to know what different ISO settings do to the actual camera's behaviour.

If the camera has a built in light meter, then the ASA / ISO seting will let the camera know how sensitive to light the film you're using is. So if you use 100asa film, a shutter-priority camera like the 35RC might meter a particular scene to shoot at f/8 at 1/125 second shutter speed. If you used 400asa film, which is four times more sensitive to light than 100asa film, then the camera would choose f/16 (which lets in 4 times less light than f/8) at 125 second in order to still correctly expose the scene.

An aperture priority camera would do the opposite - if the aperture was set at f/8 then the shutter speed would be 125 second in this imaginary scene. If you changed the aperture to f/16 (four times smaller) then the shutter speed would change to 1/30 second (letting in four times as much light) to maintain correct exposure.

While it's important and useful to understand the Exposure Triangle (how ISO, Aperture, & shutter speed work together), I wouldn't worry too much about it when starting out (although it is very advantageous to learn as you progress). You'll end up trying to remember too much information all at once. I would suggest switching the camera to the A mode, loading a 400asa film, setting the shutter speed to 1/125sec (which should be fast enough to freeze most motion), and then concentrate on finding interesting compositions with good lighting. If the scene is too bright / dim for 1/125sec, then the 35RC won't fire and you can alter the shutter speed accordingly. Understanding composition and light and letting the camera decide on the settings will deliver more satisfying results and encourage you to continue. As you progress you will pick up the rest of the stuff as you develop your skills and preferences. IMO, and some will disagree, but for me it was what worked.
 
Last edited:
If the camera has a built in light meter, then the ASA / ISO seting will let the camera know how sensitive to light the film you're using is. So if you use 100asa film, a shutter-priority camera like the 35RC might meter a particular scene to shoot at f/8 at 1/125 second shutter speed. If you used 400asa film, which is four times more sensitive to light than 100asa film, then the camera would choose f/16 (which lets in 4 times less light than f/8) at 125 second in order to still correctly expose the scene.

That is exactly what I wanted to know. That third variable which I couldn't understand suddenly makes sense! Thanks!
 
I learned photography using film. I made every mistake in the book. I actually think using a digital camera in manual is a better way to learn photography basics because it is a) cheaper and b) immediate which makes it much easier to review your results. That is not to say don't try with film, but do try and make notes about the settings used because you will probably have forgotten them by the time your pictures come back from the lab. If you can't work out why a particular image didn't work, you will learn nothing.


I have to agree with the above wholeheartedly.

Film is a lovely media to work with but is more expensive than ever to use.

If you are new to photography which it appears you are then digital is a much quicker & cheaper medium to use in order to learn the basics like exposure where you can instantly see the results.

With film, when learning the exposure triangle as such does not exist - ISO remains a constant (film speed) so it can not be quickly changed - think of it as 'balancing' shutter speed and apreature to allow the same amount of light into the camera.

Once you get used to the basics then start using film - pretty much everything in the taking of the image is transferable between the two mediums at a basic competency level.
 
It's a bit late for that!
I will experiment with the wife's digital, although it has a far broader range of settings than the RC has.
 
I've been wondering what to add to what's already been said and I completely echo all the wisdom above especially BUKTUS for a downloadable manual and the film sensitivity (ASA) you'll find useful in British winter.

Let's have another read through..... yes, absorb all the above and you'll be doing it right.

FWIW I pay for someone to develop my films and to give me back the negatives and a scan. 35mm I get "dev and cd" locally, 120 roll film I send away and get negatives and a download of the scans.

You'll probably think you'll manage without making notes of how you did what, where and when but just getting into a habit will spare you lots of frustration down the line.
Don't go on eBay :(

200% DO NOT. You'll do two things with predictable certainty:

1. You'll be buying another camera pretty quickly "'cos they're so cheap, right?"

2. You are unlikely to buy film at "bargain" prices but be sure to factor in the cost of shipping which in some cases is a bit ridiculous.
 
I'm feeling much better after the advice given on here, huge thanks to all who have contributed (I really mean it!)
I changed my film order at the advice of @Harlequin565 and ordered some Ilford HP5 and Ultramax (both 400 ISO). Both Harrison and Camera World have been really helpful. It's nice not dealing with mega-corps type outfits isn't it?!!?
Obviously I'm going to mess up some film, it's to be expected. I have been playing with the simulator @Retune linked and also with the wife's Olympus Digital. It's an E-PL3 which I understand is a reasonable camera but I really don't enjoy using it. Menus upon menus, press this button for this etc etc. That Sim is excellent though.
I do need to get a flash for the RC. I understand the correct one would be the PS100-G but they seems hard to come by which is a real shame.

Really looking forward to getting stuck in, thanks again for taking the time.
 
The camera isn't quite here yet. It's on its way (as is the film) but I fear that batteries are going to take a little while.
Then, when I have thrown half of the prints away and wondered what the heck made me even contemplate this, I'll post one or two of the less rubbish ones for you all to poke fun at.
 
Back
Top