Olympus OM40 mirror stuck

pwhysall

pwhysall

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I have a mid-80s vintage Olympus OM-40 that was working great until the mirror went up and stayed up. I've tried various things to drop the mirror, including taking the batteries out, putting lenses on and off, and so on.

Normally I'd just fling the body and buy another off eBay for peanuts, but this was my dad's camera and it has some sentimental value.

What are my options?

Thanks in advance :)
 
Do you have a mechanical shutter speeds? Same thing happened on my OM2 and it was down to the batteries being completely dead. Turning it to the mechanical 1/60s (I think) released the mirror and new batteries had it working properly again.


ETA: just looked at Camerapedia - try turning the shutter speed to B. :)
 
Have you replaced the batteries? Flat batteries can give a locked up mirror.
 
Batteries are known to be good. Will have a play with the other things when I get home tonight. Thanks all!

I like shooting with this camera and its very pleasant 50mm prime lens - it has very good ergonomics and I just love split-prism focussing.
 
An instance I had with a Contax was caused by old seals.
The damper foam had turned to mush and worked like glue.
Foam only seems to last for about 25 years or so.
 
pwhysall said:
Batteries are known to be good.
Click to expand...
Are they? How do you know they are good?
When they had Mercury in them, the batteries in my OM4 would last pretty poorly, compared to the 10 or the AX, but as long as I remembered to switch it off properly, could usually get a couple of dozen or so rolls of film through it... when they went to zinc-air cells... well, they were 'cheap' but usually dead after 3 rolls. Recently got some off e-bay to give the thing a work-out... lasted about three bludy frames! OM4 was notoriousely hard on batts, but still... thing was, though cells that came out of it still tested OK in the AX and the 10, though got lock out after a couple of frames.
If they aren't genuine wein cells... I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the obviouse/usual/simple fix.
There's also usually a manual recent lever for mirror lock-up on the right hand side of the lens mount.. think the 40 has it same as 10 & 4.
 
The OM1 was the only member of the family to use mercury cells. From the 2/10 sr44 were speced.
 
Try googling om sticky magnets ,seems 2digit OMs can get this,my OM40 suffered from it (mirror up,shutter closed, battery draining) .
 
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