Topic: There's this SLR I have

An Olympus OM10. I got it from a friend a while back to see if I could have it repaired (there's something wrong with the manual winder and the shutter. It doesn't return to the original placement after you take a picture, so you can't advance the winder. When can can advance the winder it doesn't actually advance the film reel at all). My question, though, it about the viewfinder itself. Not being familiar with cameras at all (I'm one of those people who prefer for avoid them like the plague) I was wondering about something. In the middle of the viewfinder is a cross-hatched circle. I nthe middle of this is a bisected circle. The top half is always clear, the black half seems to change between clear and black depending on how much ambient light there is entering the lens. What does this tell me? Also, I can seem to get the picture ot either focus inside this circle, or in the viewfinder aorund it. Not both. Which of these should I believe?


Justice 4 Pat Richard

Oh, cameras. I thought you were starting a discussion about parsers.

I think the two half circles you are decribing are the camera's builtin light meter. You adjust the speed at which you want to take the picture. Then while looking throught the camera, adjust the f-stop until the two halves of the circle are clear and the light coming into the picture should give you a clear well lit picture. If I remember correctly, it is possible to see either the top half of the circle being dark or the bottom half being dark or both halves are clear.

Of course the light meter only works if the scene is evenly lit and what you want to do is take a picture of the brightest object in the scene. If the scene is relatively dark and there is a bright object in the foreground, the camera will adjust to the bright object and you won't see any of the background, So you may have to adjust for things like that, but that is where it gets to be fun to play with the camera until you can figure out on you own how to use it to get the pictures you want.

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-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

Sounds like a split image viewfinder. The idea is to find focus by making both halves of the central circle match. They're pretty dark as I recall, haven't used one for.. since I used a canon t-70 (I think it was a t-70). Anyway, match the circle in the middle and smaller apertures (bigger numbers) will increase the depth of field (apparent sharpness) beyond what you see through the lens.