Olympus 35RC and lens sharpness

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Sid836

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Yesterday I have received my first developed and printed B&W film (T-max 400) shot with my newly acquired Oly 35RC. What has amazed me was the sharpness of its lens. I had started comparing these shots with the ones I took with my Nikon D90 and its AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED lens that has vibration reduction and none of them was that sharp. Is it just me, or the lens of my digital camera falls short in terms of sharpness when compared to my little Oly? Could it be me not handling my D90 correctly? Is there a lens not top of the class, but good enough to produce sharp images close to what I get with my Oly?
 
There is something about the lens on the RC, either higher contrast or great sharpness, which is clear even on small prints. Congratulations on picking up a great camera. And lets see some of the shots from your first roll.
 
The lens on the RC is quite sharp and does an excellent job w/ b&w in particular. The meter on mine is also surprisingly accurate as well. It's a cool little camera for daytime street photography. A number of members here have and appreciate the RC.
 
Indeed the meter of the little Oly is quite accurate. I had exposed half of the film with my rule of 16 estimations and the other half with its lighmeter. I should had used just the lightmeter... :)

Now I am thinking of getting another one and leave my mint little Oly aside!
 
@TXForester, Could it be a back/front focus issue? If yes would that be in obvious effect on distant objects, landscapes and generally subjects not close to the camera?
 
After fooling around with 4 of these fixed RFs, I decided this was the sharpness and had the second best controls. I had it CLAd and then have been using it since, the others are given away or sitting in a drawer. I'll put this up against my 50mm Elmar, and my 50mm Super-Takumar any day. Plus the meter is very good on my model. I couldn't find a hood so I bought a generic rubber hood for it (the rubber blocks the RF) and removed the rubber so now I have a cylinder hood. It is my everyday camera.

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I love my 35RC, the lens is amazing. I use an adapter ring to 46mm as my lens hood and it works great. If you want better IQ from your Nikon, get a prime lens, 28mm will get you a similar angle of view as the 40mm on your RC.
 
A zoom with a wide range like yours usually has some compromises no matter who makes it. Fixed focal length lenses are just easier to design and make. That said absolute resolution is not the be all and end all of photography. With your zoom you get the convenience of.........well of a zoom. A lot quicker than changing lenses. I prefer primes but sometimes you just cannot move forward or back to get the precise framing you need and with a small 24X36mm negative I hate to crop very much.
 
Nikos72 said:
@TXForester, Could it be a back/front focus issue? If yes would that be in obvious effect on distant objects, landscapes and generally subjects not close to the camera?
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I'd guess if it were a back/front focus issue, it wouldn't be off by much and show up in photos with fairly shallow depth of field at close range. Landscapes tend to have more depth of field, even with wider apertures, so a soft image wouldn't likely be a focus issue, but some other problem with the lens. Some sample photos and user reviews on a couple sites have more good to say about sharpness. You might let Nikon look at it and see if you got a bad copy.

I have a canon lens that is suppose to be pretty good. At the long end of it's zoom range, it is sharp out to about 70 feet. Then it gets really soft past that. I think it is an issue with my copy since other people say nice things about the lens.

Oh, yeah. I have an Oly 35RC too. Love it. Great images and the small size makes it great carry everywhere rangefinder.
 
charjohncarter said:
I couldn't find a hood so I bought a generic rubber hood for it (the rubber blocks the RF) and removed the rubber so now I have a cylinder hood. It is my everyday camera.
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I have the same issue with a collapsible rubber hood. Where did you find a cylinder hood with the right thread size?
 
TXForester said:
I have the same issue with a collapsible rubber hood. Where did you find a cylinder hood with the right thread size?
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I used a collapsible rubber hood. But I removed the rubber leaving a cylinder that is 3/4 of an inch long. It is probably less than the original, but it works. I'm pretty sure that I purchased it from B&H.
 
Hi,

No surprises there to me as I've been using Olympus RF's for a long, long time. But it's nice to welcome someone new into the circle.

BTW, our Chinese friends make nice cylindrical vented lens hoods, just look for one the right size on ebay.

Regards, David
 
Richard Griffith said:
How does the 35RC lens compare with the 35RD? I'm tempted by the faster lens
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In my opinion, the RC is overall the best of the pre XA Olympus compacts - the lens of the RD may be a stop faster, but in every other aspect it performs about the same as the RC, while the RC has a much better finder and placement of controls, with a time knob on top and both time and aperture display in the finder.

The SP has the nicest lens in the family, but it is much bigger, and easily the worst of the bunch regarding intuitiveness and ergonomics (with manual transfer of the displayed EV values, should you ever feel like using it in manual mode).
 
This Thread got me to use my 35SP today...loaded it with roll of Tri-X and took a few shots...
I have a roll of Fuji 160S to develop from this camera...need to take it in...
 
Hello All. This is my first post here at RFF. The 35RC has been a favorite of mine for a long time. The scan below is a 40 year old Kodachrome slide, from the first roll shot in my then brand new RC. Given the age of the slide, and the quality of my scanning, I think the sharpness comes across pretty well.

I still use the camera, and after a CLA a few years ago, it seems as good as new.
 

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