Olympus OM4ti

I owned one, an OM4 way back and loved it. It rang all the bells and pulled all the right whistles. I was out on one awful stormy day taking shots on the moors and dropped on a large rock and it bounced into a muddy puddle as I was getting back into the car...totally messed it up, smashed the viewfinder etc. :-( I got a quote for a fix, had it repaired but then got sucked into the autofocus thing and traded for a Canon EOS. Yes i loved that camera also but.... I missed the compact design of the OM and its simple beauty. The functions were easy to use and the lenses magnificent... I progressed through many cameras all auto focus and now all digital and almost all Canon. Then I realised I wasn't spending so much time on set up therefore less self satifaction even if the results were good.

We all love new technology and what the future will bring but and this is a big but! some of us liked things just the way they were. I believe some of us prefer 'photography' as it was. I am not saying there is no skill in digital, but I defy anyone to tell me the results are as good as film in many respects.

Some of the fun has gone out of photography. Anyone can pick up a camera these days and point and shoot and get lucky.

Anyway I digress...

I now have an OM4ti and love it to bits! Still got all my other cameras but the OM is treasured above all others.

A real crime that Olympus didn't carry on what they were good at instead of trying to be clever with those awful autofocus products they produced

Strengths:

Compact, Lovely design, simple and excellent handling, awsome metering functions

Weaknesses:

an off switch, however if switch to bulb... that helps. no mirror lock unless on timer

Similar Products Used:

Pentax ME Super

Canon F1n

Canon EOS 40D

Customer Service:

Never used it.

Olympus OM4ti is an xcellent camera. Never had a problem with mine and with all the features available it is a truely fabulous camera.

It is solid and yet easy to handle. Feels rugged in every respect but have a great look.

olympus om4ti is easy to use, light weight, ergonomics, controls are positioned perfectly, sharp optics. however it is pricey, bad battery drain, obselete batteries

The Olympus OM4ti is one of the best SLR camera ever.Why? A precise, simple and reliable multi-exposure metering system that is still unmatched in the digital age. Nikon / Canon are absolutely trashed away.

The Olympus OM-4ti is the pinnacle of 35mm manual focus film SLR design. I have owned several OM cameras and have used many other 35mm SLRs. The OM-4ti simply has the best handling and the best metering system of them all. The camera is small and light for a professional model but is also very robust and is weather sealed allowing occasional use in the rain. Its Titanium body is much more durable than traditional brass construction. The only downside of this is that the paint doesn't seem to stick too well to the Titanium and tends to flake off. Despite its small size the camera handles beautifully and the traditional OM shutterspeed ring around the lens throat is very natural in use. Why have no othher manufacturers other than Nikon with the Nikkormats latched on to this handling nicety?The metering system offers centreweighted, single and multi-spot options. This combined with simple to use one touch highlight and shadow compensation is impressive. The metering is thus very flexible and combined with the foolproof LCD bar graph display in the viewfinder means it is quick to use even the multi-spot option.In use the viewfinder image is large and bright. The shutterspeeds from 4 minutes to 1/2000th of a second are more than adequate for all but sports photography and the shutter and mirror mechanism are quiet. All the controls work with precision apart from the film wind on lever which doesn't have the extremely smooth action of every othe OM model I have tried. These cameras now sell from about £300.00 upwards and a near mint one shouldn't cost more than about £500.00 for a body. Considering the camera cost around £1500.00 new many years ago this is now a bargain in my opinion. There is a large selection of used lenses on the market and if you stay away from the exotic specification ones they are good value and tend not to have been used hard as OMs tended not to be used by press or sports photographers. For an OM system user or someone wanting to try out film photography I would definitely recommend one.

My dad loved this camera, but (due to financial difficulties) sold it in order to help pay for me to go to university! I am trying to track one down to give back to him for his 50th birthday which is coming up soon. I live near London........ can anyone suggest anywhere i could get hold of one in decent enough condition??

I own many Nikon Cameras and I love them but the first camera I ever owned was a Olympus OM4ti I sold it and all the rest of my Olympus gear when I was hard up and had no choice I will always regret it. The only reason I now have Nikon cameras instaed of Olympus is because unfortunately Olympus sold out and decided to go down a different route than professional photography. I can honestly say that the OM4 was truely a superb camera and I would recommend it to anyone.

I was surprised to see the Olympus OM4ti here as it's been discontinued for some time by Olympus. If you have the camera already, it's a great collectible, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to a new buyer as a user camera. For one thing, it's expensive, even used, and the camera is no longer in production, so getting it repaired or accessorized could be a problem. Zuiko lenses, while very good as new purchases, are relatively small in number, now well-used, and don't take kindly to rough use, so you could be waiting a long time to find extras. Then too, the lens line was largely limited to wide angle and standard lenses and has a distinct lack of good, fast telephoto and zoom options. When you add up what you'd spend on a complete rig, you could get a modern pro 35mm setup with much more to offer and much better flash results. The Olympus 4ti SLR is really more of a collector camera.

I have had many cameras over the years and my OM4-Ti is still one of the best manual SLRs I have come across. Its metering system is bar-none the most accurate and possibly the best you can get. Olympus have great accesories to go with their OM range as well. Hats down, it's a great camera!

Possibly one of the best manual-focus SLRs any money can buy, the Olympus OM4Ti offers a performance, durability and build that puts to shame modern plastic SLR wonders.

Its multi-spot metering system has never been bettered by anyone. Its titanium housing makes the camera very light and robust. In terms of durability, it will probably out-live silver-halide film, just as used OM1s out-lived the mercury batteries their meters needed. Such is the quality of products from this company...

But the flies in the ointment are that it is ridiculously overpriced as a new product (at least here in the UK), some of its features are now dated (ok we can live with 1/2000 maximum shutter speed but 1/60 flash-sync is surely someone's idea of a joke) and Olympus itself appears to have all but abandoned OM support.

Would I recommend it to a complete stranger? No. I don't know what a stranger's priorities would be. I would recommend one of the auto-wonders from Nikon/Canon/Pentax/Minolta instead, because with these more up-to-date SLR cameras a good photo is but a click away. With the OM4Ti, you have work at it a bit. It's a thinking man's electro-mechanical masterpiece, for photos that don't have to be rushed.

Having said that, I will never swap it and it will probably be the last silver-halide camera I will ever buy.

Now, if only Olympus would pull a digital back out of the hat with a 24mm x 36mm CCD; wow that would be something...