Bill Watts
Well-Known Member
I picked up a rather nice Olympus 35 RD last week and ran a roll of Fomapan Classic through it to check out if it was working properly.
The 35 RD (Rangefinder Deluxe) was the last rangefinder camera Olympus produced with both manual and auto exposure. It was in production following on from the 35 SP from 1975 until it was replaced by the Matani designed Olympus XA in 1979. Whilst taking styling cues from the earlier Olympus 35 cameras it was smaller, had a 6 element 40mm, f1.7 lens and a rather neat auto exposure feature for use with flash that automatically adjusted the aperture depending on the flashes guide number and the rangefinder distance.
The lens is a Zuiko lens with 6 elements with an in lens Seiko leaf shutter. The lens is not interchangeable.
Shutter priority auto exposure was provided for the ISO range 25 to 800. The cameras action does raise eyebrows occasionally, the iris initially is at the smallest aperture, on pressing the shutter the iris opens to the required aperture, the leaf shutter fires and the iris remains where it was. The first motion of the wind on lever then causes the iris to close to it's minimum aperture ready for the next frame where the process repeats.
Camera: Olympus 35 RD
Lens: F.Zuiko 40mm f1.7 (fixed)
Film: Fomapan Classic 100 ISO
Processed: Developer, Ilford Ilfotec DD-X 6' 06"
Scanner: Epson Perfection V600 Photo 3200 DPI 24 bit colour
Software: EpsonScan II, Affinity Photo2
A few photos of Hamburg to put it through it's paces:-
The weather was sunny with clear blue skies with the sun low in the sky (European winter time)
The Chilehaus f8, 1/125s
Oberhafenbrücke. f2.5 1/125, one of the best attempts I have made at this!
The Oberhafen Kantine. f2.5, 1/125 - a tricky shot with the low sun.
Close up detail of the riveting of the Busan Bridge. f4, 1/125
Old faithful - f5.6 1/125
The Chilehaus, f8, 1/125s. For some reason this always makes me think of "The Crimson Permanent Assurance Company" featured in Monty Python's film The Meaning of Life!
The images are all very sharp with little edge fall off, nice contrast and good resolution.
The rangefinder is very easy to use and well defined in the viewfinder
All photos shot in Shutter priority auto exposure mode, but due to running the camera on a modern 1.5 volt battery the lightmeter was set to overexpose by 1 stop as this gave the correct exposure readout compared to my Gossen MasterSix lightmeter. I will get a corrective SR 44 adapter soon to operate the lightmeter at the correct voltage of 1.35v
All in all this camera is a little gem
The 35 RD (Rangefinder Deluxe) was the last rangefinder camera Olympus produced with both manual and auto exposure. It was in production following on from the 35 SP from 1975 until it was replaced by the Matani designed Olympus XA in 1979. Whilst taking styling cues from the earlier Olympus 35 cameras it was smaller, had a 6 element 40mm, f1.7 lens and a rather neat auto exposure feature for use with flash that automatically adjusted the aperture depending on the flashes guide number and the rangefinder distance.
The lens is a Zuiko lens with 6 elements with an in lens Seiko leaf shutter. The lens is not interchangeable.
Shutter priority auto exposure was provided for the ISO range 25 to 800. The cameras action does raise eyebrows occasionally, the iris initially is at the smallest aperture, on pressing the shutter the iris opens to the required aperture, the leaf shutter fires and the iris remains where it was. The first motion of the wind on lever then causes the iris to close to it's minimum aperture ready for the next frame where the process repeats.
Camera: Olympus 35 RD
Lens: F.Zuiko 40mm f1.7 (fixed)
Film: Fomapan Classic 100 ISO
Processed: Developer, Ilford Ilfotec DD-X 6' 06"
Scanner: Epson Perfection V600 Photo 3200 DPI 24 bit colour
Software: EpsonScan II, Affinity Photo2
A few photos of Hamburg to put it through it's paces:-
The weather was sunny with clear blue skies with the sun low in the sky (European winter time)
The Chilehaus f8, 1/125s
Oberhafenbrücke. f2.5 1/125, one of the best attempts I have made at this!
The Oberhafen Kantine. f2.5, 1/125 - a tricky shot with the low sun.
Close up detail of the riveting of the Busan Bridge. f4, 1/125
Old faithful - f5.6 1/125
The Chilehaus, f8, 1/125s. For some reason this always makes me think of "The Crimson Permanent Assurance Company" featured in Monty Python's film The Meaning of Life!
The images are all very sharp with little edge fall off, nice contrast and good resolution.
The rangefinder is very easy to use and well defined in the viewfinder
All photos shot in Shutter priority auto exposure mode, but due to running the camera on a modern 1.5 volt battery the lightmeter was set to overexpose by 1 stop as this gave the correct exposure readout compared to my Gossen MasterSix lightmeter. I will get a corrective SR 44 adapter soon to operate the lightmeter at the correct voltage of 1.35v
All in all this camera is a little gem
Last edited:
