Fixing the Olympus Trip 35
After hearing about the awesomeness of the Olympus Trip 35, I wanted to get my hands on one. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it was mostly sold in the UK. There, you can apparently still pick up one at a thrift shop or a car boot sale for a pittance. I remain truly jealous of the Brits, since I paid $25 for mine on eBay.
Photos © Michael Raso
And when I got it, it didn’t work. Not like it should have.
The diagnosis: The ASA ring didn’t seem to be functioning (aperture stayed consistent), and it was definitely loose at the faster-speed settings. I’m not sure the aperture blades even opened up fully. Also, you could stick your hand in front of the lens, blocking the solar-powered light meter, and it would still take a picture. The Trip 35 has a built in red plastic flag that will—when it works—rise into your viewfinder and warn you that there is not enough light, and also physically prevent the shutter from firing.
After literally ten seconds on the Google, I found the following guide to Trip 35 disassembly, which is focused on unsticking the aperture blades, which was one of my problems. I read it through before getting to work, which helped me get familiar with the camera before even loosening a single screw:
http://www.thermojetstove.com/Trip35/
However, I have a few things to add after going through three separate repair sessions.
1. If you have a magnet, it’s a good idea to have it handy to pick up dropped pieces. Also, put down a white terrycloth or big sheet of felt material down, so that if you drop, say, a ball bearing, you aren’t going to waste 20 minutes crawling on your hands and knees in the lab looking for the little sucker.
2. Super important! When first disassembling the camera, you should also make note of the orientation of the inner ring that attaches to the outer lens element before you lift off that ring. For example, on mine, the ‘D’ of ‘D. Zuiko’ is at the 12-o’clock position when focused at infinity. If you reattach the inner ring in the wrong position, the focusing ring inside the lens assembly will not grab on to it, and turning the focusing ring will change nothing.
3. Like I said, the red flag didn’t work at all when I first got it, and then after the first repair, it only worked intermittently. I’m pretty sure the problem was that the three wires running from the top of the camera to the bottom were getting caught up on the lever that activates the flag. Some tightening of the wires by relocating the slack to the bottom cavity and fixing those wires in place with some well-placed electrical tape should ensure that those wires don’t get caught up and interfere with the red flag anymore.
The wires I’m talking about. They should be restricted to the right side of this photo. If they get too close to the lens, the red flag may get caught. Image © www.thermojetstove.com
4. I disassembled the rewind crank and rearranged the tiny leaf springs to make the lever “snap” more. Now it is not as loose as it was when I got it. An added perk to the fact that I didn’t know you were just supposed to “unwind” the crank while holding the winding key in place in order to unscrew it.
5. Make sure the viewfinder and the lens elements are extra-clean before putting everything back together again. I had to do a third “repair” just to get a bit of graphite dust off the middle lens element.
Anyway, thanks to the original instructions’ advice about the red mark (I used a dot of White-Out, which shows up better on black), I was fairly sure that by the final assembly stage, I was going to have good focus. But based on the amount that the focus ring turns as you adjust focus, you’ve got to be spot-on with the position of that lens when you reassemble it. So, I shot one more test roll.
Obviously, I wanted a shallow depth of field, so I shot a roll of FP4+ at ASA 100. I guess I could have gone slower, but I could pick up a 12-exposure roll cheaply at my local shop. I basically measured out the distances (1m, 1.5m, and 3m) from a brick wall, and made sure that I could pick up the bricks’ texture. I placed the camera on the ground and used a cable release. I also used up some shots of various things in the distance to see if they were in focus when I was focused on infinity. Results are below:
Focus @ 1m
Focus @ 1.5m
Focus @ 3m
Those seem pretty good, though it would be nice to know what my aperture was. Now for the “infinity” shots, which may be compromised due to the fact that I didn’t have a tripod on me:
A full 35mm frame
A 1:1 crop from a scan at 3200 dpi.
Another 1:1 crop from a scan at 3200 dpi.
Hopefully I’ve got it right! Looking forward to taking some real pictures with this camera now.
Changes in what I’m up to
Just a quick update on what I’m doing right now, in bullet list form:
- I’m giving the photo lab review series a bit of a break. I still have a load of labs on my list, and I want to keep at it, but the money just isn’t there for me to keep sending off film around the country and ordering scans and prints so that I can judge their quality for both C-41 and cross-processed E-6.
- I’m instead testing some lower-ASA black and white films. This was brought on by the idea of finding a B&W film that is as sharp as Kodachrome was. Tonight I’ll be developing my first rolls of Efke KB 25 and Kodak Plus-X (ASA 125). After that, I’ll be shooting some Ilford FP4+ (125) and Pan F (50). It’s funny since most photographers consider 100 ASA to be “medium” speed. I started learning on a digital camera, where 100 was the lowest possible ISO setting you could have…
In the interest of being consistent, I’m going to develop everything in Rodinal, maybe even at the same dilution, and I’m shooting every roll in my Konica S2. This has the added advantage of further improving my technique of focusing with the viewfinder. Unfortunately, I started the endeavor by shooting hand-held, so in the interest of fairness, I think I should keep at it. And I have 36 shots per roll, so it should be reasonable to compare the sharpest frames from each roll.
- My Hasselblad needs fixing. The frame spacing is very off, leading to a razor-thin strip where I can cut my negatives. This means I’ll have to hold off on buying more supplies and possibly narrow my 100 strangers project down to something a bit more reasonable, like 50. My 50 dogs project, which I really would like to make into a book, may have to take longer. For both of these, I’ve resolved to only shoot the Hasselblad, which is easily the best camera I own.
Now that I think about it, since my TLR’s viewfinder hood is busted, the only medium format camera that’s working as it should is my Holga. YIKES, you guys!
- I think I’m not getting enlargements that are as sharp as they could be. I’m investigating the potential causes and am going to be getting a Nikkor lens to replace my Beslar. Hopefully that will fix the problem. Then I can work on my crooked borders, perhaps by getting a better easel.
- Crap, I’m sure I’ll have to get more paper soon. Maybe I should go Glossy next time instead of Semi Matte.
- I’m interested in trying cyanotypes, but since I shoot 35mm and 120, I’d need to enlarge to ortho/litho film first… twice!
What are you guys up to? (Or: who even reads my blog?)
Sharpness
A quick post to (hopefully) improve the sharpness of your film photos.
1. Use a tripod. This is probably the best thing you can do to make your photos sharp. Your hands are always moving, and that means your camera is always moving if you’re not using a tripod. Remember that a photograph always represents a “slice” of time, so you should do whatever you can to ensure that the camera is motionless during that time if you can. If a tripod is unfeasible, a monopod is also an improvement. Otherwise, hold your camera as steadily as you can while you shoot.
2. Use a cable release. More vibration is introduced when you use your finger to push the shutter button. With a shutter release cable, the button is pressed off the camera body and transferred either through a mechanical cable extension or electronically. Thus, there is virtually no additional movement when the shutter fires. An added bonus is that virtually all cable releases feature a lock in case you want to do very long exposures. (E.g., fire the shutter, go eat some pizza, come back, and end the exposure.)
3. Use f/8 or f/11. These are allegedly the sharpest apertures to use for lenses that narrow down to f/22. Sadly, I don’t know enough about optics to tell you why. I imagine it might have to do with diffraction being minimized. Anyway, assuming your subject is stationary, use a longer exposure time so you can use this optimal aperture. Note that a large format user once told me that f/22 is sharper for large format photography. I think both optima are toward the middle of the respective aperture scales for their particular lens.
4. Use the mirror lock-up. When you release the shutter, the mirror on an SLR camera flips up to let light pass through to the film. This introduces very small vibrations to the camera, and you’ll lose a small bit of sharpness. Most SLR cameras have a lock-up function that you can activate before opening the shutter so that you can alleviate the vibration before your image capture. The downside is that you can no longer use the viewfinder, so be sure to compose beforehand. Alternatively, you could use a TLR or rangefinder, neither of which use mobile mirrors.
5. Use medium format or better. Ok, this doesn’t improve sharpness as much as it does resolution. 35mm film can only capture so much detail due to its size and the size of the grain on the film. (35mm still offers way better resolution when scanned than most consumer-grade digital cameras.) Medium format or even large format has a much larger image area, thereby allowing more details to be recorded on the film. It’s sort of like upgrading from a 640×480 monitor to a 1600×1200 monitor. Slower film also improves resolution, as the grain is finer.
6. Use a super-sharp lens. I’ve seen sharpness tests using Rolleiflexes, Mamiyas and Hasselblads – all medium format cameras. The sharpness didn’t vary much at all. However, I can also say that my 50mm f/1.4 on my Canon EOS camera beats the living hell out of the kit lens that originally came with it. This, however, is the most expensive option I’ve mentioned in this list. (Assuming you already have a camera that shoots a larger format than 35mm, of course.)
Example photograph: This was shot on Kodak Portra 400 film. The camera was a Hasselblad 500 C/M with a Carl Zeiss 80mm Planar CF f/2.8 lens. I probably used f/11 or f/8 as the working aperture. The camera was on a relatively inexpensive Slik tripod. The mirror was locked up, and I used a mechanical shutter release cable. I’ve included the overall image, as well as one that shows a 100% zoom in to the 3200 dpi scan.
