my om1 old school

[legendofkane]

I've Loved still photography for years, the last few years my health has declined so I'm not as active as I used to be. I just happened upon chance to find this premotor drive om-1. No foam degradation, working light meter, and 135f 3.5 lens. I was thinking about doing the modification for the light meter or getting the battery adapter to reduce it to 1.35 volts, or getting some hearing aid batteries. Haven't decided yet , any suggestions would be greatly appreciated on the power source. It came with a1-1 focusing screen, looking to put a 1-13 or 1-3 in it

 

[wobe]

I've Loved still photography for years, the last few years my health has declined so I'm not as active as I used to be. I just happened upon chance to find this premotor drive om-1. No foam degradation, working light meter, and 135f 3.5 lens. I was thinking about doing the modification for the light meter or getting the battery adapter to reduce it to 1.35 volts, or getting some hearing aid batteries. Haven't decided yet , any suggestions would be greatly appreciated on the power source. It came with a1-1 focusing screen, looking to put a 1-13 or 1-3 in it

Hi there - only just signed up here so hence the late reply - hope it is still relevant. I have a M-1 (basically an OM-1) and for the battery issue the options are :

1. Use a Weincell battery that fits into the camera perfectly and gives the correct voltage. However it does not last so long, I do not have experience of this but it seems 3 - 5 months approx. Battery starts giving off charge as soon as you remove the sticker seal on top, it works by reacting to air. Batteries can be a bit pricey - $5-7 I believe?
2. Hearing aid batteries 675 I believe, same type of air activated battery as the Wein above but will need some packing to get it to sit properly in the battery compartment or better a rubber o-ring. Batteries are very very cheap, a pack of 5 or 6 costing just a couple of $'s.
3. Use a standard SR76 battery (1.5v) and compensate for the inaccurate light meter reading by dropping two stops on the ISA/ASA - So if you are using ISO400 speed film set the camera to ISO100, if using ISO100 drop to ISO25 etc. Very cheap and the batteries last a long time so great if you don't mind playing around with the ISO setting.
4. Take your camera to a specialist who can insert some resistance diode to the electrical circuit such that you can use a SR76 or similar standard long lasting 1.5v battery but the circuit will ensure only the correct 1.35v are fed to the camera - The best solution by far of course.

Luckily for me I found out by accident that my camera had already had the circuit work done - I was not expecting this at all so it's worth checking on yours also. I did this by using a lightmeter app on my phone then comparing the shutter speed and aperture setting it recommended to that the camera suggested - In my case they were either the same or only 1x out, definitely worth checking!