A few months ago on my Sunday routine at car boot sales looking for old and vintage film cameras I stumbled upon 2 (yes 2) cameras, lovely and in good looking condition Olympus MJU 35mm point and shoot cameras.
I had previously read on the internet many times about the cult there is with the sister camera to this, the Olympus MJU II so I was a bit annoyed that I did not find that as well. The price of all models of old Olympus MJU 35mm film cameras has skyrocketed in recent years.
I asked the old man for the price and he said that he was selling them for €2 each but he was not sure if they work. I did not hesitate and bought both of them. If one does not work, the other might and if both do not work I will leave them as a display to my growing collection. When I got back home I put a battery in and amazingly both cameras worked fine.
The following day I loaded a roll of Fomapan 400 Action film and headed to to test this little gem. The camera fits nicely in the pocket and I love the clamshell design. The camera has a 35mm f/3.5 lens with 3 elements in 3 groups — a simple triplet design.
Focus is from 35cm to infinity. Shutter speed is 1/15 to 1/500 of a second. There is no way for the user to control shutter speed or aperture. The only downside to this camera is that every time you switch in on by sliding the front lens cover you have to switch the flash off. By pressing the same button on the top left three times you can cycle through to fill flash which is excellent for filling in those awful dark shadows on a bright sunny day.
Being fully automatic, all the user need do is load the film, find the subject in the viewfinder and press the shutter button. The camera takes care of everything. But hey, no big deal. My overall experience was great and all that was left was to wait for my roll to be developed.
Don’t know if this ever happened to anyone but I got 39 usable negatives from my 36 expouse roll so this was my first surprise. And although these are not the best pictures I am so happy with the result.
I will definitely keep this beauty with me everywhere for a quick snapshot. I am very satisfied with the outcome
~ Victor
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