Great video. Makes total sense. And I agree with not modding the camera! Please don't, folks! I have one OM with a very squirrelly meter. And I look forward to matching all of them (best as possible).
Hello Taylor Thanks for the compliment and support. I only have a few manual camera meters to go. The Pentax Spotmatic and Konica. I’m not sure about the Nikon FM, since it has no needle. And then there is the Nikkormat, which really has no adjustment, which is strange. I might do a whole video on the Nikkormat meter adjustment.
I'm always glad to help DIYer people service their film cameras. The meter adjustment on the OM-1 is a bit tricky, and not as simple as some other cameras, but if you play with it a bit, you will start to understand how it works. It never hurts to try.
You can't imagine how on point your video is ! I just restored a black OM-1, Frankenstein'd from 2 OM-1 bodies (one chrome and one black). I had to transplant the galvanometer and only thing I needed to know was how to adjust the meter. All I managed to do on my OM-1 was possible thanks to your videos sir. Thank you !
@@FilmCamera_Vlog I used my Cinestill CS-Lite light source (I use it to DSLR scan my negatives). I first tried the light source with my OM-2, which gives reliable negatives 99% of the time. Then I compared with my repaired OM-1 and adjusted adequately. Maybe not the most accurate and professional way of doing it, but it seems to work. I've checked several other film cameras with the light source and they all agreed +/- 0.5 EV. I'm just an amateur doing it for fun, and for friends, so that's good enough for me :) On the diode subject, a friend gave me a 3D printed adapter in which you can place a diode and a SR44 battery. It gives 1.35V and doesn't require any mod on the camera. And it's hugely cheaper than buying the MR-9 adapter online. I've modded a few cameras with diode placed directly in the electronic circuitry. But only when I needed to disassemble for big repairs.
Come spesso capita, ho trovato il tuo canale casualmente ma raramente si trovano canali veramente interessanti come il tuo. Sarei più portato per l'elettronica ma subisco il fascino delle fotocamere meccaniche e tutte alla fine scattano e sono in grado di utilizzarle anche se: Olympus OM-1 esposimetro starato, Nikon FM i led non si accendono, Canon ecc. ecc. Nel mentre sto cercando di far riprendere vita, da sei mesi, ad una Nikon F100 senza successo. Quindi concordo con te: W il meccanico! Grazie per la condivisione delle tue conoscenze che continuerò a seguire da, modestissimo, apprendista stregone.
Hello Thank you for the comment. I've worked on thousands of electronic film cameras, but slowly the electronic parts for these cameras stopped being available. Now I have to buy non-working junkers off eBay and rob them of electronic parts to use on the cameras I am repairing. You can find schematics for these cameras in publications like Camera Craftsman and SPT on eBay, although it sometimes takes time to find them. I am sure there are PDF files also, on websites that sell them for these cameras. I enjoy trouble shooting electronic problems on cameras using schematcs, but I am not very good at it. I usually try, fail, and replace the entire circuit.
Happy to hear you enjoyed it. The Olympus OM-1 is a camera I need to make a service video course on. If I were not so busy with my camera repair business, I would make one. When I first started this RUclips channel I thought making videos would be easy. I didn't realize how much time it takes to make just one video. This channel really eats into my camera repair business hours. Sometimes I lose a whole day's work making just one video.
Hello pkeiths Yes, the foam on the prism needs to be removed, but this video is about meter adjustment so I did not talk about the subject of foam removal. Also, the OM-1 is so old most prisms are already damaged and it's too late to save them by removing the foam. Usually, the prism has to be replaced if you can find a good one. I plan to make an OM-1 service course in the future, but it will be behind a pay wall. I will make an announcement when it is ready.
Very solid info - will this "re-zero"ing procedure account for differences in battery voltage? My OM-1 gives me dead-on accurate meter readings when I use the 1.4v zinc air batteries that almost match the 1.35v mercury ones the meter was designed for. I'd love to be able to use 1.55v silver oxide instead. I'm getting ready to solder a diode into the meter circuit to drop the battery voltage, but honestly this looks easier. My concern is, if I do this instead of the diode, then my EV-15 reading should be accurate, but will the readings at significantly higher or lower EVs be accurate?
Hello Andrew I covered most of what you are asking in my Nikkormat meter adjustment video, but to answer your question. Many camera meters can be adjusted for the 1.5 volt batteries. A few, like the Nikkormat or Canon F1, not so much. They will work, but give incorrect exposure readings on the highend and lowend light readings. You could solder in a diode, but the easy way is to buy a step-down voltage battery converter if using the 1.5 volt battery. I'm not a big fan of soldering diodes into cameras. I like to leave these old classics at factory settings. If the 1.35 volt battery is accurate, I would keep using it to be on the safe side. All batteries need to be replaced once a year anyway, because of accidental acid leaks. Your birthday is a good reminder. Even if it's still good, change it to be safe. I charge about $300 to replace acid damaged wires in the OM-1. Buying a new battery every year is much cheaper. Anyway, that is my opinion of the diode fix. It may work, but I don't like it.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog Good info, thank you. I'm looking to get an FTb and this OM-1 off of the 1.4v zinc airs I've been using. They give accurate and linear readings, but they last about a week once exposed to air, whether I use them or not.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog By way of update since I thought you might be interested, I did some testing of my meter using the light panel you recommended. Compared it against a spot meter that I really trust and use for large format work. My OM-1 was not quite linear with a 1.55v silver battery, and off from 0.5-1 stops at most EVs. But it was closer with the 1.55v battery than with my 1.4v zinc airs, and more linear. So I figured I'd try adjusting the meter like in this video before messing around with voltage conversions, using the 1.55v battery. Lo and behold, when I pulled the top cover off, there was already a diode and some heat shrink tubing soldered in there. Guess the previous owner already had it installed at some point. After turning the gold cam screw about 30 degrees clockwise, I got a perfect match with my spot meter at EV 15. Then the moment of truth--checked EV 12 as well, and it was still dead center, not even 1/3 of a stop off. Hooray! Now I can get back out and shoot this camera with absolute confidence, even using slide film. Thanks for your great tutorial on adjusting this meter!
@@BHuij1992 I'm glad to hear you found my tutorial on exposure useful. I wish more photographers would purchase and use spot meters for their photography. I always used one back when I was an active photographer.
Hello Al Scarpone If your OM-1 has been set to ASA100, Speed of 125, and aperture of f16, the needle should be in the center if you use a EV 15 light source. See my DIY on how to set the meter. You are calibrating your meter, not setting the sensitivity.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog ah ok i see. Thanks a lot for your answer! what if my light meter works relatively fine but is a little high (right in the middle the needle is laying diagonal and not quite horizontally). Is there any way to fix this?
Hello@@AlScarpone It is a common problem with many needle meters. The only fix is crude and I don't like using it. You have to (carefully) bend the needle with your tweezers until it is horizontal. You will never get it perfect. Just do the best you can and leave it alone. It will never be perfectly horizontal.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog Oh ok i see, thanks a lot. So I‘ve got one last question. In the video you show this „circle mechanism“ to set up the light meter. Is it possible that my needle is too low in any of these possible settings (all around the circle)?
Hello@@AlScarpone Yes, it can happen. It usually happens with the 1.5 volt battery, and not often with the 1.35 volt battery. The meter only has so much adjustment. If you exceed that limit, the needle will never go to the center.
Is there a possible to do a basic check if the meter is working? I have on OM-1 took apart and would like to hook up a battery to the circuit which is on the mirror box. Lets say i would like to get the needle moving regardless of the light.
Hello @klofisch Normally, you test the meter by putting negative battery current to the meter ground screw on the back side of the meter near the viewfinder, and positive battery current to the blue wire on the switch circuit board. If the needle does not move, try reversing the negative and positive wires to see if it moves. If the needle does not move with either test, the meter is probably dead. I don't know if you are using a power supply or battery, but keep the voltage under 3 volts or you may burn up the meter. Those Olympus OM1 meters are hard to test sometimes. Half the ones I have in storage are dead. They don't seem to hold up as well as the Nikon, Minolta, and Canon meters. I don't think the quality is as high.
I bought my OM1 new around 19 years old, I'm now 68. Before that I had an Olympus Pen Fr the system came with a wide28mm lens and 200mm zoom. People think the OM1 is a marvel of engineering being so small, but you want to take a look at the Pen FT, it takes 72 frames on a roll of 36. Because its so small it uses only half the size of a normal 35mm SLR frame. I tell you these boys at Olympus back then were advanced aliens from another planet who hitched a ride to Earth on the Appolo returning from the moon. Appolo, Olympus, they must have worked together from the beginning. What happened to my little Olympus Pen FT, the smallest SLR in the world, and probably still is???. I sold it to a mountaineer, so I could buy the full frame OM1, now which camera would be the one to have kept?? The Pen FT of course !! there are literally ten's of thousands of OM1's laying around, you can pick one up for £100 and if the light meter works inside it after 40ys, you've got a good one that's been looked after really well. My one's gone, although the needle moves up and down without a battery when you turn the shutter how weird is that? I remember back in the day I was having troubles with the in screen light meter, a friend told me to put a piece of card inside tge battery cover and bobs your uncle it sprang back to life. I'll try use a 1.3 battery that you recommended from Amazon as the one .625 original I bought from ebay was a dud. There's another channel where the guy says hiw to use tge OM1 without its light meter and its the f16 rule, which is f16 @ 500 on really bright 🔆 days and then simply go down a stop as the light decreases, to measure the light all you need to do is look at the strength of the shadows, if no shadows on the day but you're outside then its going to be several stops down from tge F16 rule. I'm also using my dads Ziess Ikon but the film especially colour is v expensive to practice with, but it's all good fun, and I luv it, its just at the end of the day the quality is soooo good. I wish I never gave up using the old analogue camera's, but hey, we always want the next best thing, or did, but I'm now content to stay with this analogue system because there's soul involved, I can't explain except digital is weak and full of nothing, the process from camera to print is soulless basically it's one of those hobbies for dummies.
Hello Spills The Tea That is a very long comment. I see you are going to make me work. LOL I bought my first camera while in the Army in 1969. A Nikkormat. Then I traded in for a Beseler enlarger while in college. Over my younger years, I traded many cameras, because I didn’t have the money to buy and keep them all. I sold the ones I had to buy new ones. I guess that's pretty common among young me who don’t have enough money to buy and keep cameras. As for the Olympus OM-1 meter, it’s not made of high quality parts and it has to be clean, calibrated and cared for to work at all. It’s a shame the exposure meter on the OM-1 is of such poor quality. It’s a very popular camera. I always suggest photographers not use their camera’s built-in light meter, but instead, to buy a handheld meter off eBay for setting their camera’s exposure. Serious photographers use handheld meters, period, and sometimes more than one. I have always owned both film, and digital cameras, since the digital cameras came on the market. My first digital was a Ricoh (early 2000). I sold it of course to buy another one. I wish I still had it. Film photography is good for a fun hobby, or serious gallery prints to keep and sell. For gallery prints you much also develop your own film and do your own darkroom print making, which I did back in my day. Anyway, I like both, but I agree, digital cameras are soulless.
Can this method be used to compensate for using a 1.5V battery instead of 1.35V or would it still be better to modify the circuit? Edit: Never mind. You answered it. Thanks.
Great video. Makes total sense. And I agree with not modding the camera! Please don't, folks! I have one OM with a very squirrelly meter. And I look forward to matching all of them (best as possible).
Hello Taylor
Thanks for the compliment and support. I only have a few manual camera meters to go. The Pentax Spotmatic and Konica. I’m not sure about the Nikon FM, since it has no needle. And then there is the Nikkormat, which really has no adjustment, which is strange. I might do a whole video on the Nikkormat meter adjustment.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. As someone who grew up using a film P&S and got the OM-1 last year, this video is very valuable.
I'm always glad to help DIYer people service their film cameras. The meter adjustment on the OM-1 is a bit tricky, and not as simple as some other cameras, but if you play with it a bit, you will start to understand how it works. It never hurts to try.
High I found this video very useful. Will you be making a video on calibrating the meter on a Pentax spotmatic or Pentax SP 1000.
Hello SEL TORMLOCK
Yes, I will make a video on one or both in the future. I have too many cameras and too little time. LOL
You can't imagine how on point your video is !
I just restored a black OM-1, Frankenstein'd from 2 OM-1 bodies (one chrome and one black). I had to transplant the galvanometer and only thing I needed to know was how to adjust the meter.
All I managed to do on my OM-1 was possible thanks to your videos sir. Thank you !
I am surprised and glad to hear my video was helpful. Did you use an EV 15 light source to set the meter?
@@FilmCamera_Vlog I used my Cinestill CS-Lite light source (I use it to DSLR scan my negatives). I first tried the light source with my OM-2, which gives reliable negatives 99% of the time. Then I compared with my repaired OM-1 and adjusted adequately. Maybe not the most accurate and professional way of doing it, but it seems to work. I've checked several other film cameras with the light source and they all agreed +/- 0.5 EV. I'm just an amateur doing it for fun, and for friends, so that's good enough for me :)
On the diode subject, a friend gave me a 3D printed adapter in which you can place a diode and a SR44 battery. It gives 1.35V and doesn't require any mod on the camera. And it's hugely cheaper than buying the MR-9 adapter online. I've modded a few cameras with diode placed directly in the electronic circuitry. But only when I needed to disassemble for big repairs.
@@stratocactus have a link for that STL perhaps? Im using 1.35v zinc air batteries, but would love to give options to anyone I gift one of my OM-1s
Come spesso capita, ho trovato il tuo canale casualmente ma raramente si trovano canali veramente interessanti come il tuo. Sarei più portato per l'elettronica ma subisco il fascino delle fotocamere meccaniche e tutte alla fine scattano e sono in grado di utilizzarle anche se: Olympus OM-1 esposimetro starato, Nikon FM i led non si accendono, Canon ecc. ecc. Nel mentre sto cercando di far riprendere vita, da sei mesi, ad una Nikon F100 senza successo. Quindi concordo con te: W il meccanico! Grazie per la condivisione delle tue conoscenze che continuerò a seguire da, modestissimo, apprendista stregone.
Hello
Thank you for the comment. I've worked on thousands of electronic film cameras, but slowly the electronic parts for these cameras stopped being available. Now I have to buy non-working junkers off eBay and rob them of electronic parts to use on the cameras I am repairing. You can find schematics for these cameras in publications like Camera Craftsman and SPT on eBay, although it sometimes takes time to find them. I am sure there are PDF files also, on websites that sell them for these cameras. I enjoy trouble shooting electronic problems on cameras using schematcs, but I am not very good at it. I usually try, fail, and replace the entire circuit.
Excellent video. Demonstrated and filmed with great clarity. Thanks for uploading.
Happy to hear you enjoyed it. The Olympus OM-1 is a camera I need to make a service video course on. If I were not so busy with my camera repair business, I would make one. When I first started this RUclips channel I thought making videos would be easy. I didn't realize how much time it takes to make just one video. This channel really eats into my camera repair business hours. Sometimes I lose a whole day's work making just one video.
eek you want to get rid of that foam between the prism and the flash screw bracket before it eats away the silver surface of your prisms
Hello pkeiths
Yes, the foam on the prism needs to be removed, but this video is about meter adjustment so I did not talk about the subject of foam removal. Also, the OM-1 is so old most prisms are already damaged and it's too late to save them by removing the foam. Usually, the prism has to be replaced if you can find a good one. I plan to make an OM-1 service course in the future, but it will be behind a pay wall. I will make an announcement when it is ready.
Very solid info - will this "re-zero"ing procedure account for differences in battery voltage? My OM-1 gives me dead-on accurate meter readings when I use the 1.4v zinc air batteries that almost match the 1.35v mercury ones the meter was designed for. I'd love to be able to use 1.55v silver oxide instead. I'm getting ready to solder a diode into the meter circuit to drop the battery voltage, but honestly this looks easier.
My concern is, if I do this instead of the diode, then my EV-15 reading should be accurate, but will the readings at significantly higher or lower EVs be accurate?
Hello Andrew
I covered most of what you are asking in my Nikkormat meter adjustment video, but to answer your question. Many camera meters can be adjusted for the 1.5 volt batteries. A few, like the Nikkormat or Canon F1, not so much. They will work, but give incorrect exposure readings on the highend and lowend light readings. You could solder in a diode, but the easy way is to buy a step-down voltage battery converter if using the 1.5 volt battery. I'm not a big fan of soldering diodes into cameras. I like to leave these old classics at factory settings. If the 1.35 volt battery is accurate, I would keep using it to be on the safe side. All batteries need to be replaced once a year anyway, because of accidental acid leaks. Your birthday is a good reminder. Even if it's still good, change it to be safe. I charge about $300 to replace acid damaged wires in the OM-1. Buying a new battery every year is much cheaper. Anyway, that is my opinion of the diode fix. It may work, but I don't like it.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog Good info, thank you. I'm looking to get an FTb and this OM-1 off of the 1.4v zinc airs I've been using. They give accurate and linear readings, but they last about a week once exposed to air, whether I use them or not.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog By way of update since I thought you might be interested, I did some testing of my meter using the light panel you recommended. Compared it against a spot meter that I really trust and use for large format work. My OM-1 was not quite linear with a 1.55v silver battery, and off from 0.5-1 stops at most EVs. But it was closer with the 1.55v battery than with my 1.4v zinc airs, and more linear. So I figured I'd try adjusting the meter like in this video before messing around with voltage conversions, using the 1.55v battery.
Lo and behold, when I pulled the top cover off, there was already a diode and some heat shrink tubing soldered in there. Guess the previous owner already had it installed at some point. After turning the gold cam screw about 30 degrees clockwise, I got a perfect match with my spot meter at EV 15. Then the moment of truth--checked EV 12 as well, and it was still dead center, not even 1/3 of a stop off. Hooray!
Now I can get back out and shoot this camera with absolute confidence, even using slide film. Thanks for your great tutorial on adjusting this meter!
@@BHuij1992
I'm glad to hear you found my tutorial on exposure useful. I wish more photographers would purchase and use spot meters for their photography. I always used one back when I was an active photographer.
thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Hello NSRGB
And thank you for watching the video.
Great video! What I didn't quite understand is whether adjusting the light meter affects the sensitivity or only the midpoint of the needle.
Hello
Al Scarpone
If your OM-1 has been set to ASA100, Speed of 125, and aperture of f16, the needle should be in the center if you use a EV 15 light source. See my DIY on how to set the meter. You are calibrating your meter, not setting the sensitivity.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog ah ok i see. Thanks a lot for your answer! what if my light meter works relatively fine but is a little high (right in the middle the needle is laying diagonal and not quite horizontally). Is there any way to fix this?
Hello@@AlScarpone
It is a common problem with many needle meters. The only fix is crude and I don't like using it. You have to (carefully) bend the needle with your tweezers until it is horizontal. You will never get it perfect. Just do the best you can and leave it alone. It will never be perfectly horizontal.
@@FilmCamera_Vlog Oh ok i see, thanks a lot. So I‘ve got one last question. In the video you show this „circle mechanism“ to set up the light meter. Is it possible that my needle is too low in any of these possible settings (all around the circle)?
Hello@@AlScarpone
Yes, it can happen. It usually happens with the 1.5 volt battery, and not often with the 1.35 volt battery. The meter only has so much adjustment. If you exceed that limit, the needle will never go to the center.
Is there a possible to do a basic check if the meter is working? I have on OM-1 took apart and would like to hook up a battery to the circuit which is on the mirror box. Lets say i would like to get the needle moving regardless of the light.
Hello @klofisch
Normally, you test the meter by putting negative battery current to the meter ground screw on the back side of the meter near the viewfinder, and positive battery current to the blue wire on the switch circuit board. If the needle does not move, try reversing the negative and positive wires to see if it moves. If the needle does not move with either test, the meter is probably dead. I don't know if you are using a power supply or battery, but keep the voltage under 3 volts or you may burn up the meter. Those Olympus OM1 meters are hard to test sometimes. Half the ones I have in storage are dead. They don't seem to hold up as well as the Nikon, Minolta, and Canon meters. I don't think the quality is as high.
I bought my OM1 new around 19 years old, I'm now 68. Before that I had an Olympus Pen Fr the system came with a wide28mm lens and 200mm zoom. People think the OM1 is a marvel of engineering being so small, but you want to take a look at the Pen FT, it takes 72 frames on a roll of 36. Because its so small it uses only half the size of a normal 35mm SLR frame. I tell you these boys at Olympus back then were advanced aliens from another planet who hitched a ride to Earth on the Appolo returning from the moon. Appolo, Olympus, they must have worked together from the beginning.
What happened to my little Olympus Pen FT, the smallest SLR in the world, and probably still is???.
I sold it to a mountaineer, so I could buy the full frame OM1, now which camera would be the one to have kept?? The Pen FT of course !! there are literally ten's of thousands of OM1's laying around, you can pick one up for £100 and if the light meter works inside it after 40ys, you've got a good one that's been looked after really well. My one's gone, although the needle moves up and down without a battery when you turn the shutter how weird is that? I remember back in the day I was having troubles with the in screen light meter, a friend told me to put a piece of card inside tge battery cover and bobs your uncle it sprang back to life. I'll try use a 1.3 battery that you recommended from Amazon as the one .625 original I bought from ebay was a dud. There's another channel where the guy says hiw to use tge OM1 without its light meter and its the f16 rule, which is f16 @ 500 on really bright 🔆 days and then simply go down a stop as the light decreases, to measure the light all you need to do is look at the strength of the shadows, if no shadows on the day but you're outside then its going to be several stops down from tge F16 rule. I'm also using my dads Ziess Ikon but the film especially colour is v expensive to practice with, but it's all good fun, and I luv it, its just at the end of the day the quality is soooo good. I wish I never gave up using the old analogue camera's, but hey, we always want the next best thing, or did, but I'm now content to stay with this analogue system because there's soul involved, I can't explain except digital is weak and full of nothing, the process from camera to print is soulless basically it's one of those hobbies for dummies.
Hello Spills The Tea
That is a very long comment. I see you are going to make me work. LOL
I bought my first camera while in the Army in 1969. A Nikkormat. Then I traded in for a Beseler enlarger while in college. Over my younger years, I traded many cameras, because I didn’t have the money to buy and keep them all. I sold the ones I had to buy new ones. I guess that's pretty common among young me who don’t have enough money to buy and keep cameras.
As for the Olympus OM-1 meter, it’s not made of high quality parts and it has to be clean, calibrated and cared for to work at all. It’s a shame the exposure meter on the OM-1 is of such poor quality. It’s a very popular camera. I always suggest photographers not use their camera’s built-in light meter, but instead, to buy a handheld meter off eBay for setting their camera’s exposure. Serious photographers use handheld meters, period, and sometimes more than one.
I have always owned both film, and digital cameras, since the digital cameras came on the market. My first digital was a Ricoh (early 2000). I sold it of course to buy another one. I wish I still had it. Film photography is good for a fun hobby, or serious gallery prints to keep and sell. For gallery prints you much also develop your own film and do your own darkroom print making, which I did back in my day. Anyway, I like both, but I agree, digital cameras are soulless.
Can this method be used to compensate for using a 1.5V battery instead of 1.35V or would it still be better to modify the circuit?
Edit: Never mind. You answered it. Thanks.
@FilmCamera_Vlog
patreon.com/mycamerahobby