Olympus OM10 help

[Glassjaw]

So I have an Olympus OM10 which I had found a while ago and really hadn't played with it much up until now. Tomorrow I plan on taking some pictures of my friends and I playing Ultimate Frisby. Essentialy I have a few questions about the camera.

Firstly, should I leave the manual shutter speed set to auto or is it completely dependent on the lighting / enviroment?


Secondly, I just loaded the film and it's starting to count up from 1, correct I'd imagine? Also, it's an 800 speed film I believe, at least it said 800 on the canister in which the film was packaged. Anything special I should set to accommodate this?

Plus the film is very out of date, should I expect poor results up front?

 

[panocho]

Firstly, should I leave the manual shutter speed set to auto or is it completely dependent on the lighting / enviroment?


Secondly, I just loaded the film and it's starting to count up from 1, correct I'd imagine? Also, it's an 800 speed film I believe, at least it said 800 on the canister in which the film was packaged. Anything special I should set to accommodate this?

Plus the film is very out of date, should I expect poor results up front?

1. whether you set the speed to auto or select it manually depends exclusively on how do you want to shoot. If you don't have the basic notions about exposure, then setting it to auto would probably be a good a idea. A better one, though, would be getting those basic notions; it only takes a while -and then practice, of course.
auto won't give you always good exposures, since the camera built-in meter sometimes is "fooled" by ambience light. For example, shooting against the light will easily give you an underexposed subject. In such cases you have to compensate the meter that the camera gives you, etc Well, it seems I'm trying to start already!

2. yes, the camera starts counting exposures from 1, that's ok. About the sensitivity or speed of the film, you have to "tell" the camera which one it is so that the meter will give you accurate readings (except for the exceptional cases mentioned). Select "800" on the camera's film speed dial

3. How much is very? It depends on how much and also how it has been kept (if refrigerated, better). Sometimes it just doesn't matter: you won't notice anything. But if "very" is significantly "very", then the colors (in case it's color) might render badly. If b&w is more difficult to notice differences

You have a nice camera. Try to learn a little bit about it (and photography) to be able to enjoy it better.

You will probably find the manual on-line. That would be a good place to start from.

Good luck!

 

[panocho]

Sorry, I just noticed that I mistakenly took the OM10 for the OM1.

So there is one part of the reply that changes: unless you have a manual adapter (a dial in the front of the camera, which some OM10's have, but not all of them!), you won't be able to select the shutter speed manually.

So, as you said, yes, you have to put it in auto and then select, in that same dial, the "800" that goes for the film sensitivity. the red/blue "1" and "2" stand for the compensation of the exposure.

sorry!