Olympus Auto Eye – A Short Review (Sort Of)

As many of you who follow this blog or my twitter (@6millionpphotos in case you’re wondering) I am quite the fanboy of camera’s of the Olympus persuasion. I’ve got more than a few, and find myself drooling over the thought of getting my hands on more than a few others. With that said this post is going to focus on a slightly less well known camera from Olympus’ past, the grandfather perhaps of the well known Olympus Trip, the Olympus Auto Eye. This was given to me by a friend in work  as I seem to have attained the tag of “the guy who likes cameras” and get given random cameras every now and again.

There is plenty of information online about this model so I won’t get bogged down too much in the ins and outs of it. However it is a rangefinder with a fixed 4 element 45mm f2.8 lens and a selenium light meter that gives it full shutter priority auto exposure. Stand it next to an Olympus Trip and you can see the similarities, and how the models Olympus made shrank over the years. It looks and feels basic but the auto exposure must’ve been quite the widget at the time of its release. Focusing is zonal with close, group and scene printed on the lens as well as relative distances, and the shutter has a very satisfying click to it, a little bit (but only just) more satisfying than the noise of the film advance lever.

So I’ve got a selection of some images taken on this, I have to say I was quite impressed with how these came out as I wasn’t expecting an awful lot from the camera. I was pleasantly surprised. Have a look and see what you think.

 A little off with the focus on this one, I am still terribly hit and miss when using a rangefinder.

 Really like the level of detail in this and the one below.

 Isn’t it great that breakfast “on a plate” is worthy of advertising about?

So what do you think? It’s a nice little camera to use, thanks to the auto exposure the only thing to really think about is the focus and as its selenium there’s no need for batteries. The light meter will literally outlast the sun, i think.