Camera Review: Olympus Stylus Epic with expired film.

I was meaning to kick off with a review of the Canon AE-1, but, there was a death in the family, and it will be a few days before I get to the lab to retrieve my film, so I'm going to start off with a pair of Olympus point-and-shoots that I had previously reviewed in my older blog, which is going into a non-photographic direction now. Posting to this blog will help to occupy my mind with other things during this time.

A note about my camera reviews, I'm going light on the specs. There are sites that give extensive lists of features for all sorts of cameras. I don't need to repeat any of that. I'm going to talk a little bit about my own personal shooting experience.

I was cleaning out my basement when I came across my old Olympic Stylus. This was one of my first favorite cameras. I hadn't seen it in years and thought I had thrown it out or sold it. In short, I thought that it was lost to me forever. Well, there it was, with a dead battery and a half exposed roll of Fujicolor Superia 200 still loaded. So I was able to do three things at once: shoot with a beloved old camera and see if it still held up to my memory, try shooting with expired film, and do a review.

The Stylus Epic was introduced in 1997 as part of Olympus' popular Stylus line of 35mm cameras. The stylus cameras from this era had very distinctive smooth lines and sliding protective front covers. Other Stylus models had zoom lenses, but look for the Epic because of it's fast and wicked sharp fixed Olympus 35mm f2.8 fixed lens. The plastic body is covered in a nice, creamy gold paint. The back door has a window to let you know what kind of film you have loaded. The direct viewfinder is nice and clear. When closed, the shell protects everything in the front of the camera, the lens, the viewfinder, and the light and focus sensors. When closed the camera has a nice, rounded shape that is unnoticeable in your jacket pocket.

The camera is point-and-shoot easy. It has a smart multi-point auto focus, and very few controls to worry about, just compose and take a picture. It has a quality lens and is  just fun and easy to carry around.

The expired film ended up looking kind of cool.