All About the Olympus OM-4 (yes, it's awesome)

1983 … sigh. Graduation from high school. I had a 1973 Fiat 850 Sport Spyder and I was living large with my Pentax ME Super and Tri-X for cheap. I appreciate the quality of your videos. Your script and narration is well thought out. Thanks for another quality video.

Your explanations and demonstrations of using this with the actual viewfinder view is just superb. Along with your patient and detailed explanations of actual use in photo shoots. I'm learning a very great deal about these old cameras through your videos.

A very very nice video about this camera! Impressive that you presented the number of features so well and compact! Just like I commented under your Video about the T90, I own a OM4ti. I sold all my Canon cameras (just my Canon P is still here) and lenses (and my T90 as well) because I knew that I won’t use them, if a have the Om4. I can say, that the difference I terms of battery drain between the early and the upgraded models is massive! The Battery’s in my Om4 stay good for more than half a year. And I use it multiple times a week. Something that a don’t want to miss is the grip! The Camera really fells different with it. The price to get the original one separately a crazy! Just keep your eyes open for a good deal on an OM2SP with it and some lenses maybe, sell all you don’t need and put it on your OM4! Mutch nicer to hold on to. Not as good as the extremely nice grip on the Pentax LX but is helps a lot. My biggest "Problem" with the Om4 is that you don’t have your aperture Info in the Viewfinder. It’s not the end of the world of course. And I really like the kind of (fells like it to me) artistic way to think about your shot. First what aperture that you want to use and everything else after that in the Camera. But it would just be nice to have the info as well. Like this I need to take the camera from my eye a bit more to check the selected aperture. I just have 3 lenses for my OM4. Not like the massive amount that I had for Canon before that. The 28mm 2.8 which is super small and nice to use. The 50mm 1.4 in its latest version (is really a good bit better than the old silver nose version, I had both) and the 90mm f2 macro, this one is my dream lens on this system. On canon fd my most used lens was the 90mm 2.5 macro from Tokina. I loved this Lens massively but the Olympus 90mm f2.0 is even better! It really is just an amazing piece of glass. The only Lens that I would by as well is the 180mm 2.8 because I liked my 200mm 2.8 Canon nFd a lot. But I really think that you don’t need more than this tree lenses! 28mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, and the 100mm 2.8. Mutch more for the dollar compared to the 90mm f2 but if you get this one, you’re going to have a good time! To shoot with an OM4 just works for me. The system really makes sense if you use it a bit. And I really mean that! The layout of the buttons is just nice! Just the Shadow and highlight buttons are a bit hard to reach but I tend to use just the Spot function anyways. I think as a conclusion I can say that this camera is very niche. It really is not something for everyone. But if it fits your style of shooting, and you put some nice lenses on it...boy is this camera a performer. And so much better for my neck than the Canon F1 new that I used most of the Time before the OM4. Greetings from Germany!

Thanks for the video - brings back lots of memories! The OM-4 was the first camera I bought with my own money in 1988. This was after deciding that spot metering was the most accurate exposure solution available. Apart from Olympus and the Canon T90, I don't think any Nikon, Pentax or Minolta models had spot metering. I really wanted an OM-3 but they were pretty rare so snapped up a used OM-4 instead. Around that time I was influenced by Ansel Adams' zone-system for visualising how to expose a scene. Hence, my OM-4 was mostly in manual exposure mode with its superb bar-graph display & aforementioned spot meter. I then spot metered a key part of a picture, deciding its exposure-zone. Really learned a lot about that side of photography - and I occasionally still use spot-metering on my modern digital camera when it gets too confused.

I had no idea that the OM4 had this level of metering. I was a poor soldier in the 80's shooting a canon T50 as my first camera in the uber cool program mode 100% of the time and remember being excited by the fact that it had a lighted meter instead of the mechanical one. This camera would have blown my mind then. I always wanted another T50 for nestalgia and was always yerning for the T70 and T90. I'm definitely going to look into one these. Thanks for the highly detailed info on it. I shoot folders mostly but I like an old dslr from the 80's once in a while.

The other nice thing in the viewfinder is that there's an indication as to whether you have exposure comp set. That has saved me more than once!

Thanks for all of the details on the OM-4, impressive. great photos too.

Great video, thanks a lot. I was suddenly struck by the lightning bolt of nostalgia and had to listen through the Synchronicity album once again. I had almost forgotten how amazing The Police's music was. The soundtrack to my youth! 👍🏻

A couple notes on the hilight and shadow controls: not only do they shift the exposure by +2 or -2.6 EV, but they also work with multi-spot metering to find the brightest or darkest spot and meter only from that one. The idea was you'd use shadow metering with negative film, and pick spots on all the dark areas you wanted to preserve a little detail in, and let the camera find the darkest of those and put it at -2.6EV for you (zone 2 if you're Ansel). Similarly when using reversal or slide film, where highlights blow out easily, you use hilight mode and spot meter all the brightest spots you don't want blown out, and the camera puts the brightest of those at +2EV. Also when in center weighted metering, at middle and low shutter speeds the camera continues to meter off the film itself while the photo exposes, and extends or shortens the exposure as needed. This is useful in changing light conditions or photographing moving scenes. Night time and concerts with flash lights are easier to photograph this way too. And it made auto flash exposure TTL. The OM system included flashes which the camera could control to turn the flash off as soon as the exposure on the film was sufficient. This improved on earlier auto flash exposure systems where the flash had a fixed light sensor built in which tried to guess how much light was arriving at the film.

I just want to say thank you very much for your latest videos. First of all, I was wowed by the difference between centre-weighted and multi-spot metering. Secondly, I wanted to say how much your metering series has helped me. I have bought one of the books that you recommended and have been working through the exercises - I finally understand exposure equivalence and f-stops and I am taking a lot more time with my metering. I have ambitions to do a lot more with film directly as a result of you videos.

Excellent video on what seems to be a very versatile camera. I think you had to do your homework on using this one. Keep up the great videos!

I really love this video. Thank you 😊

You're in my backyard!! I live in Carrollton 😂

very good video. Excellent measurement system from that Olympus. In some Minolta you can use the multispot system and the high light/shadow with the expansion cards. I use them on the maxxum 7xi, but it is a very large camera. I'll have to try that OM4. Thank you very much for sharing.

Another GREAT video!

Hey thanks for doing this. Great pics. I have an OM4 I bought a few years ago that luckily doesn't have the fast battery drain. But the problem I've had with it is that the viewfinder is very dark except for the split prism. There may be some issue with the eyepiece I must check out. But compared to my Pentax MX or my 67, it's really hard to use the viewfinder. I think that a roll of slide film would really provide the challenge to figure out how good the multi-spot is. It's probably also the way to test whether the highlight button could provide really fast, accurate exposure. Loving your vids. Comprehensive and give a real sense of what a camera's going to be like in use.

You got great photos!

Just bought one of these, after longing for one when I was a teen. Luckily, mine has the updated circuit board. Don't have any advice to offer, as I am learning this camera just like you. Great video though, and love the pictures you got. Thanks.

I have an OM-4Ti, Love it so much! Have had no issues with my battery. I switch it to B1/60 as an off switch just in case.

I worked in a camera store in the early 1980's and we sold Olympus, Fuji, Yashica, Nikon, and Canon. The OM-4 was a great camera with some unique features, but almost no one would look at it because it was pricey and it wasn't a "program" camera. Canon spent so much advertising the AE-1 Program that we had a hard time getting customers to even look at any camera that wasn'ta "program" camera..