Shocker!

No, not Andy Murray winning Wimbledon (thought that's pretty momentous - first Brit to win the men's singles in 77 years); but that my new (old) Nikon is less than an once heavier than my trusty Olympus!

When Olympus launched the OM-1 in 1972 - I remember it like it was yesterday - the big selling points were its size and weight.

The publicity material was stunning. Black lettering (matt) on a black (glossy) background. Only thing missing was the black light lighting up black, to tell you... (for those of you old - and geeky - enough to remember Zaphod and Arthur). But I digress...

I gave my Nikkormat FTn to my father and bought my first OM-1n, used, in 1979. I had that camera for just 2 years until Andy North left it in his room - unlocked - and it was stolen.

The next OM was another OM-1n (£125), again used, from Fox Talbot in Hammersmith.  That camera I still have. It's been through some pretty harsh treatment, particularly the 130F heat of the Sahara desert; not to mention the sand.

Fast forward 20 years and the next OM - well two actually - were a pair of OM-2S' which I picked up for very little money on eBay in 2001. One of those is that pictured here. And in case you're interested, I have found that setting the shutter to 60 mechanical (the red numbers) and the metering to 'Program' does seem to prevent the much discussed battery drain. The current battery has been in the camera for so long - probably 2 years - that I've forgotten exactly when I put it in.

Anyway, in the 34 years I've used Olympus cameras, I've always held onto the belief, as touted in the Olympus marketing campaign 41 years ago, that the OM system was smaller and lighter than it's competitors.

So it came as something of a surprise to find that my new (old) Nikon FE2 which I bought on eBay last week was almost exactly the same weight. With the practically identical 35-105mm zoom lens, the OM-2 weighed in at 2lb 4.8oz and the Nikon at 2lb 5.1oz, less than 1% heavier.

The FE2 doesn't have the OM-2's 'Program' mode - which is fine since I never use it anyway, and is easier to use in manual. It does have two faster shutter speeds, 1/2000^th and 1/4000^th, neither of which I'm likely to use either. The matching needles in the viewfinder for manual mode metering is inspired, and much more intuitive and informative than the 'up a bit, down a bit' metering that many manual cameras, including the OM-1 and OM-2, use. And the sound of the shutter / mirror is remarkable. Much crisper than the OM-2, and as it turns our, a tad louder. It's probably purely imaginary but it sounds like good engineering.

This is the first grown-up Nikon I've owned; the Nikkormat doesn't count (and that was a really heavy camera). So a bit late in life (mine and that of film photography), I've been converted to Nikon!

I would still like to have an OM-5D; but my loyalty to Olympus has dissipated a little on discovering that in fact it wasn't the smallest, lightest SLR on the market. And as full-frame DSLRs become affordable, maybe at some point I'll get a Nikon.

The shutter sound    

Here's a recording of the two shutters. The first is the OM-1n (both OM-2s have film in), the second the FE2. Both were set to 1/250th of a second. The third and fourth pairs of firings show the wave form in Audacity.