One OM-2n became three, and half a dozen lenses, all for less than one new digital compact camera. They are superb things, so small and neat, such an opposite to my regular D3, or even D200 and associated lenses. To think that pro' cameras used to be so small and light! What happened on the way Nikon and Canon?! Why can a modern pro dSLR be as neat as an OM?
The big downside of shooting film is the cost of processing. This is just something photographers accepted back in the film only days, but now a 1Gb memory card can be bought for less than one roll of film alone. So the eBay OM's haven't seen a lot of film, being used like a weekend only classic car, and what film I have used has been from my bag of random old outdated films. If only I could use my OM Zuiko's on a digital camera...?
Well, I've recently been able to borrow an Olympus E-420 dslr, which with a cheap adaptor(another eBay find) means I can try using the old manual lenses for 'free', digitally.
If the E-420 doesn't have the design chic of those old OM's, it certainly is tiny enough to match their handling. Unfortunately, the small size is achieved partly from the little sensor, only half the size of a 35mm frame so lens focal length is doubled, and the viewfinder is pretty wee, half sized.
Yet the whole point of buying the OM's, the Zuiko's and borrowing the 420 is the very act, the skill even, of manual focussing. The now nostalgic feel (in an autofocus age) of turning a smoothly damped focussing ring. The actual connection of myself with the very sharpness of the photo... from eye, to thought, to hand, to ...click! This is the way the greatest ever photos by the greatest photographers, have been taken. From Fox-Talbot, to Cartier-Bresson, Capa, McCullin, Bailey, you name them..
The latest autofocus is a technological marvel, especially with a Silentwave type lens, instant and err, silent. But focussing is not now a physical thing as it once was, no more skill is needed (other than by thumb, to select a focus spot). Brilliant, yet thoughtless technology, easing our way to take a photo, that and auto-exposure.
So to use again a manual lens is like turning on the thought process, relearning the skill, and truly operating a camera. And I love it!
Of course, in using the E-420 I'm copping out a bit by using aperture priority autoexposure, but that's just a light reading thing. Focussing is the real deal. Using a fixed lens, not a zoom, concentrates the eye and exercises the feet! Put a Zuiko 28mm next to a Nikkor 12-24mm and it's so tiny it's like something the Nikkor might have coughed up!
So my new thing after being a photographer for 30 years, is focussing, an almost forgotten skill yet the most basic skill a photographer should have.
With video becoming more commonplace in cameras, vSLRs, so far all requiring manual focussing while filming, maybe the time has come for the comeback of all manual lenses.
Voigtlander make a few superb lenses, but all other manufacturers expect us to use the feeble, wibbly wobbly, lightweight excuses for a focus ring that are on their autofocus lenses.
Got used to autofocus? Go use a manual lens! If you're a proper photographer, you'll love it! 
Scarborough, May 2009, Olympus E-420 with 28mm f3.5mm Zuiko OM lens
