My first real film cam: Olympus 35 DC

My History with film cameras

I came in touch with film cam around 4 years ago (credited to a girl who kept using film camera but know nothing about it). Back in that time, my main gears would be disposable cameras and one toy-liked Point & Shoot (later denoted as P&S) camera I bought from one film lab called 「畫英雄」.

While the image was surprising at first, low image quality due to cheap plastic lens and improper developing had driven me finally shifted to digital cameras (first fujifilm then Sony, Lumix, and Ricoh) .

Thanks to YouTube's recommendation algorithm, I came across a sigma man called Jason and his channel: grainydays.

It was his sigma charisma that encouraged to pick up film camera again. But this time, instead of buying another industrial crap, I decided to go a step further and try one "real film camera". I want something mechanical with proper optical lenses. However, as a person who has been spoiled by Ricoh's snap shoot functions, I was also expecting the camera to have some level of automation. At least, it should have the auto exposure function. After a very brief round of googling, I locked the camera: Olympus 35 DC.

My Journey with this metal box

Hand on experiences

Like most of my gears, I got this camera from Carousell. The seller was an American lady, who actually taught me how to use this camera very nicely. My first impression to this camera? Heavy! Like many other cameras built back in that century, they showed no mercy in using stainless steel as the primary material for camera built. Especially for such a tiny camera, the weight became more perceptible. The range finder was quite a unique experience for someone like me who was born in the age of DLSR where you won't actually have the view of what the camera "sees" but a frame of filming area. Some people may find this design tricky and inconvenient. However, for a person who was found of Fuji X-Pro3, it won't be a problem actually a bonus point.

I soon headed to a film store nearby and loaded the camera with a roll of Kodak Ultramax 400. Unlike my previous P&S camera which can automatically load and advance the film for me, the Olympus requires manual loading and advancing the film. While the seller day did send me one YouTube link for loading the film, I still encountered some difficulties as the lever was stuck at certain angle. I later learned one key feature of the camera which I would described it as "light switch". As there was no "on/off switch" on the camera body, engineers of Olympus has developed a solution to avoid accidental triggering of shutter by setting up a threshold of detected light strength to activate the camera. So if you mount the lens cap, there won't be any accidental shots which I encountered many times on my Nikon f3. Quite clever right? However, the ambient lighting where I load the film was so weak that the camera was never turned on which locked the shutter and further the advance lever. It was only until I pointed the camera to a lighted billboard that the problem was solved.

Let's talk about the control of the camera. As I mentioned earlier, I was looking for a camera which have a higher level of annual control but also come with some sort of automation. Well, for this camera, apart from very generic auto-exposure, all other control was manual. Manual focus, manual film speed setting, and manual shutter forcing. Why I would say the auto-exposure was generic? Well, first, the indication was blurry. As shown in above image, the exposure config (a combination of aperture and shutter speed) would be displayed via a moving vertical marking. As there was only few combinations, you kinda have to guess the exposure settings which lead to some problems later. Second, there was no exposure intervention interface. While theoretically you could do compensation through changing the film speed settings, it was inconvenient and you have no aperture priority and shutter speed priority mode. This could lead the case where you loose some clarity due to wide open aperture or having blurry image due to long shutter time. In some cases where the lighting conditions was not optimal, the camera would refused to shoot. If you still would like to obtain an under exposed image, you do have the choice to forcing the shutter by pressing the force button located on the bottom of the camera using a extreme posture which should have never gone through ergonomic considerations (way to go Olympus engineers). Although there was no built-in flash, Olympus reserved a connector for those who would like to use a professional grade flash.

Good afternoon, good evening, and good night

This Olympus could be the camera which traveled with me to the most remote place among all camera I still own (Most camera simply travels with me to Japan. Some lucky one to Australia). On March 16th 2025, I traveled to the unbelievable place: Fiji.

We used up all our miles and redeemed tickets to Fiji Islands. It was a place which only existed in the film "The Truman Show" before and it feels so unreal until you actually breathe the air there. Arriving at 5 am in the morning (2 am UTC +8), the sun was even up yet. You can feel the condensed water once you step out of the aircraft.

Given it was still early in the morning. We decided to give it a walk to kill some time and take some photos. When I say, walk, it was an over 10 KM field walk along the airport runway to the hotel.

This is an under-exposed image I took using the Olympus forcing trigger function. Fortunately, it kept the beauty of the moment before sunrise and the Kodak Gold actually did a great job in nailing the color accuracy.

This photo was taken when we walked along the abound railway track. Based on the track width, it should not be designed for passenger service but freight. As mentioned earlier, the camera does not have an auto-focus system. To determine the focus, you have to observe the yellow patch in the rangefinder to se if there was any shadow. At an environment without proper lighting, it would be pretty hard to have an accurate focus along side the blurriness due to the extended shutter speed.

As we soon realized how the track has been the battle field of mosquitos, we went down to the path of pedestrian. A convertible bus with excellent ventilation pass by us. It should be the very first time I saw a bus without windshield and "roof". From the peeled off paint it can be implied that the bus has been on service for quite a long time. There is no reason for me to not record this moment. I lifted up the camera and pointed at the bus. To my surprise, the rushing bus actually stoped for us. It may wrongly interpreted my filming action as hitchhiking. Local passengers leaned out of "windows" and staring at us with mysterious smile on their faces. We clarified our intentions and appreciated their considerations. The bus soon left with the sound of the exhaust echoing around.

Anyhow, we continued our "midnight" 10KM hiking to the resort. We witnessed the sun gradually came up to the position and experienced how the solar radiation can change this island to an oven. Along the journey, countless private stoped and shouting the very same word to us: "taxi?". Apparently, uber or grab has done an excellent work here turning every moving vehicle on the road to a cab. The infrastructure (I refers to the road surface) was nothing but bumpy. Watch out for the splash!

After something like two and a half hours, we finally made it to the resort. We should be the two visitors who came here on a walk. There was even no passage for pedestrians at the entrance of the resort. As the time was early, roughly around (8 to 9), after checking with the concierge, we rested at the lobby and waiting for our room. Ms Daisy soon reached her coma mode and got paralyzed on the coach. For me, I went out to haunt for breakfast. In a little pacific island that is thousands miles away from China, I ran into a coffee shop opened by two Chinese ladies. No doubt, I had the possibly the worst sandwich that I ever had. For the coffee, they spilled out some brown liquid from a container in the fridge and it tastes as bad as you can imagine (don't tell that is cold drip). Well worth spent money and my first meal in this country!

Can you imagine checking in at 9 in the morning? Well, that's how nice the resort front-desk is. She managed to arrange a room for us at that early time. Shout out to that resort which I already forgot the name :) !!! The centre of the hotel is a swimming pool and our room was located just next to the pool with a plant fence.

After some quality time at bed (nothing related to adult only behaviors). We out for lunch. There wasn't that much options for lunch and we chose the first one we met as always. As a pizza-lover, I had no hesitation and ordered one "pizza". Yeah, trust your eye, I would also call that a dumpling rather than a pizza. Nevertheless, it still tastes like a pizza. Just imagine cross cropping the pizza and have all the toppings like cheese contained inside. Also, no crunch! What a mercy!

The majority of the afternoon was also spent on bed (Yes, no sex) as we are yet having the jet lag and temperature could be literally unbearable for any person who is not soaked in the cool pool water! With such great sunlight, anything inside this resort looks exactly like those western vocation movie (I am referring to you After Sun). Kodak's gold did a fanatic job in capturing the color or even give it a tone and soul (As I am quite sure the color was nothing like this at the time).

It was not until dawn we went out the air-conditioned room and head out the resort for walk. We first walked passed a seaplane company which was closed that day. It should be the first time I met a floatplane or an aircraft with propeller engine at such a close distance. Right next to the aero company, it was a golf club. With such approximation to the airport, it shall should be compared to Bangkok. One terminal of the road would be a public beach which I suppose should be the place where Fiji locals hanging outs. Nothing fancy like the facilities in the resort and even the beach was filled with craps and branches. However, the locals still did a fanatic job in enjoying themselves. Loud music from their car radio along with laugh.

We had a very elegant dinner that night. Yet I still ordered one Margherita. You will got amazed by the hospitality of the waiter and waitress there or I just got used to how mean Hong Kongers can be. Customers and waitresses were just like friends. Chatting about the day and ordered for routine. Of course, they are old. Old enough to have enough pension living in a resort like this.

The very next day, we flight back to Hong Kong. It was an eleven-hour-flight and our trip at Fiji may only be a little more than 24 hours. Well, worth it!