Olympus Infinity 76
The Olympus Infinity 76
The Basics
The Olympus Infinity 76 was a six dollar thrift store find. It still had the two AA batteries and an old roll of film. Everything seemed to work and I felt there was nothing to loose in the purchase. Opening its cam shell lens cover powers up the camera and when closed protects the lens. The lens is a 38-76mm f/4.5-6.2 is not fast letting in lots of light , but will work well for most daytime photographs. It’s zoom range shows in the viewfinder and is perfect for simple vacation photography.
Point and shoot cameras remove a lot of the work in dealing with the exposure triangle of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO film speed. Generally the later you get in 35mm film history, the more features were added to point-and-shoots. The Olympus Infinity 76 version contains the features of auto focus, automatic DX encoding of the ISO film speed, and automatic film loading, winding, and rewind.
Specifications
The Olympus Infinity 76 point and shoot provides:
Lens - 38-76mm f/4.5-6.2 (7 elements/7 groups).
Auto Focus Type - Active IR AF. A half press of the shutter button activates AF.
Metering - Center-weighted average.
Shutter speeds from 2 seconds to 1/500th of a second.
ISO range with automatic DX encoding - 50-3200. If DX encoding is not detected, then the film speed will be fixed at 100 ISO.
Automatic film loading, winding, and rewind. Insert the 35mm film, pull out some leader and align the with the winding sprockets.
Self Timer - 12 seconds.
Power Source - Two AA Batteries.
Dimensions - 5.5 x 2.9 x 2.5" (138 x 74 x 64mm) WxHxD.
Weight - 12.7 oz (360 g) without batteries.
Wisdom From The Manual
Learning from the manual was a little hard with the Olympus Infinity 76. This was a thrift store purchase and no hard copy manual was available. I’ve been looking online for this manual and the only one I found close was the Olympus Zoom 80. The Zoom 80 has a different layout of controls and buttons, but the same general features. With that in mind I’ll try to list the options of the simple menu translated from this manual. Then add one or two things to help the internet understand the operation of this point and shoot. The camera needs two AA batteries to operate and those are loaded on the bottom of the camera.
The film back release button.
Make sure there is no film in the camera or the film is rewound before opening the back. This is an autoloading camera. Open the film back, load the cartridge, and pull out some film across the shutter window on the film transport sprockets, but not fully on to the take-up spool. The film advance sprockets should do the rest of the work when the back is closed. There is a film rewind button on top of the camera that can be pressed with a dull pin to activate the rewind at any time. It will rewind automatically though once then end of the roll is reached.
Moving right to left: the Wide and Telephoto rocker switch, the shutter button, the indented film rewind button, the settings cycle button, and the LCD display
In the LCD display currently is the battery level and red eye reduction on. There is no film loaded so the counter is not present.
Night mode with red eye reduction.
Infinity mode (landscape mode) with flash off. This mode turns off autofocus and sets the focus to infinity. Also shows “E” empty of film when first turned on.
Force flash on (Fill in flash)
Flash Off / Flash Override
Timer which provides about 12 seconds of delay after triggering the shutter.
In Use and Examples
This camera can not be used for hitting focus for moving people and objects. The autofocus is slow and in general can miss shots if you are not careful. Take your time, focus on the subject, slow press the shutter button to activate the focus, move to verify composition, and fire the shutter. Moving subjects are not the strong suit of this class of point and shoot autofocus cameras.
The examples here were taken with Ilford XP2 Super 400.
Seattle Metro on 3rd Ave
The Olympus Infinity 76 is slightly bigger than a pant pocket can hold, but will easily fit in your jacket. The zoom is useful and provides a focal length options good for vacation seekers and casual film fans. I had some issue with the scans from the local processor. Most of the photos provided in the inverted scans were over exposed. I was able to recover some of these photos and did get better results by photo scanning myself. I still need to learn more about how to make a proper negative inversion which I’ll document later for this web site.
Sky Reflections
The camera itself is not quiet. The autofocus and winding make a fair amount of noise. Because of this it is not the greatest at being a stealth street photographers tool. There is also no way to zone focus except to set the focus at infinity for landscapes.
The Mecca, Seattle’s bar of choice for discerning drunks.
The battery is a strong point. Using two AA batteries means at any location in the world you can grab extra power. In the era of modern digital cameras where each battery is proprietary, not easily publicly purchased at the drug store, and needing to keep track of charging, simple power choices can be a strength.
Eraser, larger than life public art outside the Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle
Seattle City Light Broad Street Substation. A building that calls for monochrome film.
Conclusion
There are those times where you should just go with the that six dollar thrift store find and take a few shots. If your are at that point in your photography discovery adventure, don’t hesitate. Fun with film is just a few dollars away.