Huh. My manual says you need to keep the shutter release half-pressed. See page 54 (‘chapter’ 19).
If anyone wants an Olympus OM-N1, let me know (the lens I still have for it is a Kiron 70-150mm zoom). My eyesight is no longer good enough to focus manually so I’m happy to send those along to anyone who might want to use/experiment with it.
Wow, that is super generous!
Not really. It was a wonderful camera for me at the time (I traded in my Pentax K-1000 for it), but it is sitting here unused, and I want someone else to love it and use it like I did. That would make me much happier than having it sit here in the Camera Closet.
Weird. The A-1 manual calls it the “Exposure Memory Switch” and describes the behavior I mentioned, on page 71.
Try it on both of your cameras. Mine both behave as I described above. Maybe they both work in either mode, but the manuals were written differently for AE-1 Program vs. A-1.
You may have picked up that my Olympus cameras are my favourites. I would love to take it off of your hands.
ETA: Today I finally got a lens cap for my Olympus 35 RC.
Welp, if you want it send me a PM and we’ll talk.
PM sent.
Pentax SLRs of the 60s were solid and sturdy, many pros did use them.
K series like the KX and KM were also solid hunks, some limited editions were MD capable (of one of them)
The electronic K2 was a high end camera that also had a motor drive version K2-DMD
The MX was a direct competitor to the Olympus OM-1 while the ME was a consumer model
Their real pro camera was the 6x7cm roll film Pentax 6x7 (later named Pentax 67)
I’ve heard that the LX was their real pro 35mm camera. It would be nice to have, but I already have Olympus, Nikon, and Canon ‘systems’, so I really don’t have room for one. But if I saw one at a yard sale…
I consider Pentax MX professional caliber as well. Optional 5fps MD, interchangeable focus screens, 250 exposure back…
Competitive features with Nikon F3, yes
Pentax 67 is medium format (6x7cm on 120/220)
Another interesting 70s era high end 35mm camera was the Minolta XK and XK-Motor Drive
More 35mm camera history…
The Leitz/Minolta collaboration produced some amazing cameras. Leitz-Minolta CL, Minolta CLE, Leica R3 (cousin Minolta XE-7), Leica R4/R6 family (cousin Minolta XD-11)
Leitz developed the Correfot auto focus system in the 70s and then didn’t use it. Minolta took off with the Maxxum AF series of cameras in the 80s, including the pro targeted Maxxum 9000. Those A-series lenses later fit on Sony DSLRs.
Off the film plane (OTF) metering was a Minolta development, but liscensed out and first used by Olympus OM-2
I would have loved to seen a Leica based on the Minolta XK or any Maxxum model
Now, let’s talk about the Nikon 8008, Canon T-90 (FD lens mount), and Canon EOS 620/650 cameras (EF lens mt) and those features and form factor still seen and expanded on with Digital cameras, including many mirrorless cameras
As I mentioned, I played with the AE-1 Program (without film) today. As noted, you don’t know what shutter speed the AE-1 Program chooses in Program mode.
I put a battery into the A-1 and played with it very briefly. The requirement on the A-1 to choose Av or Tv on the camera body is indeed ‘quirky’. I think I could get used to it though. I was confused by the numbers in the display at first. It seemed to be giving me unheard-of numbers like 1/300 second or f9. I can only assume that I’m reading the numbers correctly, without playing with it some more; but it seems like a continuous velocity transmission on a car, rather than more-familiar ‘gears’. My initial impression is that, if I’m reading the numbers right, I like the A-1 better. But I still like the traditional controls of the Nikon FM3a and the Olympus OM-4. 
Got a similar setup here, although my newest addition is a Cinestill heater based on a sous-vide cooker but with the programs modified for developing. Makes the temperature control for C-41 and E-6 super easy. I still have some logistical problems in that my bottles of chemistry tend to float around in the tub. I need to come up with a way to positively locate them as in the Jobo units.
The A1 displays shutter speeds in 1/2-stop increments.
BTW, here’s the manual:
Question about color slides.
I see folks regularly mentioning shooting slide film and admit that it would be cool, but I haven’t figured out what I would do with them.
With standard color or B&W, I do digital camera negative scans and convert them to positive using Negative Lab Pro. I do traditional darkroom prints with B&W.
But if I shot slide film, I am imagining that I would still end up doing the same thing, with the feature that I wouldn’t be able to order prints (am I wrong about this?).
I had always figured that the main allure of slides was the ability to project them on the big screen.
So what are you slide guys doing with them in modern times? Should I be shooting slide film too?
Same setup here! I was blown away when I did my first roll of Kodak Gold 200 in my basement. Very cool.
That shot of the tall ship in Stockholm I mentioned earlier was shot on Fuji slide film. I ended up having four of the photos printed (11"x17"), I took on the European excursion; so yes, you can get prints.
I bought my AE-1 Program just a couple/few months before the trip, and I bought film based on the recommendation of a friend/coworker of my dad, as he said this Fuji film had free processing. I didn’t know it was slide film. I haven’t shot any slides since – not because I dislike slides; but I don’t have a need to, and prints (Yes, I still like prints. They kind of go with the Zeitgeist of shooting on film.) are more convenient.
Back in the day, at least, there were the Cibachrome and then Ilfochrome printing processes from slides. Pictures shot on transparency and printed on that looked like nothing else. Just phenomenal.
When I shot for print, newspapers always wanted negs, and magazines always wanted positives. They would accept the former, if needed (I’d shoot neg if I had to go above 800 ISO, but 95% of my magazine work was slide). So it wasn’t a matter of projecting slides there; I assume something about the printing process made it easier to deal with slides than negs.
I don’t know what the deal in modern times is, though. I do know from my scanning experience that scanning negs seems to be less of a pain in the ass than scanning slides, for whatever reason. That said, converting slides to digital these days, I just use a slide copying adapter like this one, shoot raw, and that gives me as good or better results than my Nikon Cool Scan V ever did and it’s much faster. (The only minus, I see, is that shooting this way doesn’t give you the Digital ICE dust-and-scratch removal technology the dedicated scanner does.)
Back in the film days, I liked slides for the color, saturation, and contrast. I suspect you could mimic it pretty well these days scanning negs and adjusting the sliders. Plus you get a lot more dynamic range using neg.