OLympus OM motor drive 1

[belgiumreporter]

Another parcel arrived today, this time in it a olympus OM motordrive 1 unit. This is just one of those things that comes your way when you weren't looking for it. I do have a small collection of olympus gear as part of my larger collection of japanese 35mm reflex cameras. They never got much attention as my main concern are both nikon and canon. Because of my lack of interest in the olympus part it never occured to me that such a thing as a motor drive for the old OM's existed ( how ignarant can you be?) Still when browsing through the small ads i came across this unit, asking price was 5 Euro, 4 times less than i paid for the OM winder on my om 1 how could i refuse such a bargain? So now the olympus section of my collection became a little bit larger, even if i didn't had plans in that direction.

[Stephen]

My OM is so early it no motor drive connections, one of the first batch into the UK..they offered conversions, but I never took up the offer from David Williams, the importers, who became Olympus (UK) Ltd. Strictly speaking, it is an M-1.
Stephen

[philbirch]

A potted history of the OM 1.

Olympus's first (full frame) SLR was the FTL introdued in July 1971. A pretty standard camera with an M42 thread but with a meter coupling 'nipple', for full aperture metering. The FTL was not designed by Olympus, but made by them and on the market for only 7 months. It was a stopgap between the discontinuation of the Pen series and the new M series. M for miniature)

Introduced in January 1972 The M-1 was an immediate success, so much so that Leitz complained about the name. Olympus were happy to change the name as they were already working on a newer version. This was rushed out in 1973 and became the OM1 (Olympus Miniature). Several modifications were made including an air damper for the mirror, better shutter material and improvements in materials and build quality.



Later in 1974 the OM1MD was introduced. M-1 and OM1 cameras could be modified to take a motor drive which was introduced sometime in also in 1974. A modified M-1 or OM1 had the MD logo glued to the front of the top plate.  The actual OM1MD camera had the MD badge built into the front of the camera.


After several upgrades in 1979 the OM1n was born. This had MD as standard. The OM1n had over 30 improvements notably an LED flash status indicator in the viewfinder. 


The OM2 was introduced in 1974. In 1983 the OM3 and OM4 were introduced to replace the OM1n and 2. The OM3 never really caught on as the cheaper Om1n was still available, it was quietly discontinued and is quite rare these days.