Olympus Stylus Epic (Mju II) Review

The Olympus Stylus Epic probably has one of the biggest followings in the point and shoot film camera world.  It is very simply camera in terms  of functions and usability but this camera is no slouch and will punch above its weight class to the Contax and Ricoh point and shoots. I have had this camera for about two years and I have shot a lot with it and I tend to grab is over the Contax Tvs i and the Leica Mini. These cameras are pretty easy to get a hold of on eBay, at thrift stores or out of a old persons house. The unfortunate thing about them is the price is going up since the camera has a cult following that grows by the day and they are selling at a premium. My best suggestion  is to go to junk shops and goodwill and dig though the camera bins and you will aventually find one. 

Overview 

Now usually this section is very long and goes in to deep detail about a camera and all its functions and its quirks but with this camera there is not a whole lot. Do not let that discourage you from wanting to try this camera because as simple as it is it's an amazing camera that works well with what it has. The Mju ii is an aperture   priority camera with a 35mm f/ 2.8 with a few flash functions and a date stamp function as well.  Another selling point to photographers is the the fact that is is an "All Weather" camera meaning its okay in some light rain or the snow (take with a grain of salt since it is a "vintage camera" and o-rings deaerate over time.) One of my favorite things is the clam shell lens cover that slides open to reveal the lens. This is by far one of my favoite funtions and its very responsive to to the camera on and shoot. 

The major  selling point of this camera is that 35mm f/2.8 lens with a the cameras focusing range is 1.2ft to infinity , it is damn sharp and it is what drew me in to getting one of these cameras. The Multi/AF is pretty nippy and fast and doesn't miss often but when it does miss its frustrating  like any other Af film camera. Like the Contax TVS and Leica Mini you can half press to focus and recompose and snap a picture. 

Nothing to special on the top of the camera other than the shutter in a blingy gold color.

The back of the camera has the most going on in terms of functions. There is four buttons that control flash settings self-timer and shutter remote and time stamping. Do not mind the electracal tape in the corner had a spill a few weeks ago...

Like most other point and shoots that have built in flash its default mode when turned on is Auto flash which is obnoxious to have to turn that off every time you want to shoot unless you want to gamble and have the flash go off on in someones face on the streets or when you are documention something that you do not want flash to suprise someone.  The flash is darn good though, not to bright and over powering, I do prefure the Contact Tvs flash to this but it works and works well. 

An overview of the flash modes. Night Scene Flash similar to the Ricoh Gr cameras. 

Inside the viewfinder you don't have to much going one. The whole viewfinder is the feild of view and picture frame. The lines are the the close up frame lines. The green dot indicates the image is focused and the red dot indicated flash is needed/is going to use flash.

Handling 

The handling of this camera is fantastic for a few reasons and this is why I tend to lean towards grabbing this camera. The camera is fully operational by one hand and thats the biggest benefit of this camera. With your one hand you can open the clam shell of the camera and still have your finger on the shutter ready to fire. With the camera being so simple there really is not much you need to thing about for taking photos other than opening the camera and making sure the flash is on or off. Honestly thats the best thing about this camera is it is a grab and go camera. I almost never leave the house with out it, since its light around the neck or fits in a coat pocket.

The size of this camera is remarkable and is about the size of my wallet and not much bigger than a i-Type  film from the One Step 2. Oh yeah and thats a felt olympus pouch for the camera. I'm a sucker lame camera accessories and it helps keep the camera a little more safe.   

The Not so Good

With like every camera I always give my thought on what is not really great about the camera and this one only as a few that I could think of that really minimal. The build quality of the camera is not the best companied to the Contax Tvs and is plastic and not metal. With that being said I did drop it and it did break and I had to super glue it and add some electrical tape on it to make sure it was sealed from light.  The lack of being able to change the ISO is a bit annoying but that is a common thing with any point and shoot camera and you can just scratch the DX coding and modify it to different ISO. Lastly is the the electronics in the camera failing and making the camera a nice paper weight. This has happened before to my once which is frustrating but they are easy enough to find another one. Last Lastly is the the price for these is sky rocketing to insane prices.

Images

The best feature of this camera is the lens and i really love the quality of it and the contrast and characteristics of it. 

 Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

 Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

 Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

 Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

 Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

Conclusion 

This has been a really positive and praising review and I tend to review cameras I want to keep or just experience because of  the advice of others. There is a lot of bang for buck with this camera and it is really simplistic and it is really a true point and shoot. There is no special features to this camera other than some flash settings. It really is a true grab and go camera and I have this next to my wallet and knife and when I leave the house I grab this camera and that is my favorite thing about it. With a fantastic sharp lens and small and simplistic form factor it is really hard not to love this camera and shoot a lot with it.

Contax TVS i Review

After getting bit by the compact point and shoot bug with the Leica Mini I was left with wanting more. I started looking around for something with more features and better build quality and I was looking at Ricoh GR's and Contax T's and even the Minolta TC-1 but I couldn't fathom spending that kind of quiche on a point and shoot. I wanted something a bit more sophisticated that I could put around my neck or just carry in my had when I am going somewhere that doesn't really demand a "big" camera and I just didn't want to break the bank. After digging around the internet and trying to find a camera that some what fit the criteria I came across the Contax TVS line. These cameras where just like the Contax T's but they had zoom lenses and where a third of the price and I settled on the TVS i the first of the three models for a few reasons but really it came down to  a fantastic price. Lets just say it doesn't hurt when you lose out on a item on eBay to reach out to the seller and let them know that if the winner doesn't pay you'll buy and it just might work! The one that I need up getting was in mint condition with the felt /satin display box with  metal lens cover, lens hood and uv filter. This was so close to a full set but unfortunately  this set was  missing the strap and regular plastic lens cover, soft carrying case and manual.

First day I received this baby, free roll of Tri-x!

Overview

The Contax TVS i is a high end zoom aperture priority compact point and shoot camera that Contax put out that is highly over looked compared to the other Contax point and shoots. One of the reasons it's over looked is because its a zoom lens point and shoot with a Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T* 28mm-56mm with a F/3.5-6.5 when zooming, also there is 6 elements, 6 groupings. So it coined as not being as sharp as the fixed Contax T's. But I can vouch for this camera that it is in fact tac sharp at 28mm and when you zoom to other focal lengths. Sticking with the lens of the camera, what really drew me to this camera is the way you zoom the lens with a what I want to call a "dive knob" that controls the power of the camera and the zoom of the lens.  On the lens you have an aperture ring that ranges from P and F/3.5-16 that is very ridged and very satisfying when adjusting the aperture. On the front of the camera, there is a built in flash that is quite good but obviously it has its limits with it being a point an shoot. Next to the flash is a tiny circle that is for the self timer light, next to that is the light sensor, followed by the viewfinder, and then focusing window, and finally the AF assist beam emitter. 

You can see that Drive Knob that is across from the Contax logo to the left

A view of the whole top of the camera with the lens fully zoomed with lens hood and uv filter attached. 

Now we find ourselfs on top of the camera and the layout of the top of there camera is extremely minimal and very functional. Starting left to right we have a small LCD screen that displays flash sooting modes and a button next to it to program the flash. Just a little bit more on the flash is that it's defaulted to auto but you can change that to always off by a few different button pushing and holdings. Just under that we have the exposure compensation dial or wheel, that helps if you want to push film since this camera sets the ISO by DX coding. Across the top you find the sexy Contax logo you find the self timer and above that is the shutter button that you half press for focus and exposure lock. Finally we have another LCD screen that is the exposure counter and that is always on even the camera is off, which is a nice touch. Also that LCD screen displays the lens focal length when the shutter button is depressed halfway which is quite nice.  Lastly you have the focus dial that has AF and then different distances in meters that you can use for manual scale focusing, and the dial is pretty sturdy when locked in AF but has been bumped a few times then I was shooting.

Here you can see the exposure compensation dial , flash LCD and Flash mode button.

Now the back of the camera is a little different because i have a data back on it and I don't even use it and haven't bothered trying to because it doesn't interest me . But the plus side of having the data back on the camera is that it has a better thumb rest than the stock back, unfortunately  the back does make the camera a little more bulky in terms of girth. Now this camera has a "panorama" mode and its not a real panorama mode because it just masks off the top and bottom of the frame but it is fun to have and use.

The bottom of the camera there is the standard tripod socket and the battery compartment that takes a DL123a or a CR123A battery. Then right next to that is the rewind button for manual rewinds. 

The viewfinder is a really interesting part of the camera and it takes some getting use to it to understand what it's displaying. In the middle of the viewfinder is the oval which I believe controls the focus and metering as center weighted, below that is a green aluminated bar the displays the shutter speed and weather you are in program mode or not. Then there are a series of arrows and circle that tells you whats in focus or whats not. I will be inserting two pages from the manual to clear explain this because it is some what confusing. 

This screen shots will explain the viewfinder a lot better than me (obviously because its the manual...duh...)

screen shots from http://www.butkus.org/chinon/index.html

If you don't know butkus it is a site that has every camera manual possible.

Handeling 

The handling of this camera is quite good, and I touched on some things about handeling in the over of the camera but I want to go in-depth about it here. First of all the camera has a really nice weight to it and it should since its built out of titanium ! In the overview I talked about the camera having a data back with a bigger thumb rest which gives a good grip when caring it around in hand all day. It also has a small indent on the from the the camera where your others fingers will hang out and it is a different material and it does provide some good grip when your hand is sweaty. The shutter button is in a perfect position for your pointer finger and your thumb is in a great spot to adjust the manual focus .

 Size compasison of the Contax TVS and the Leica Mini and you can see the the TVS is a bit slime and longer but that lens sticks out a bit with the uv filter and hood which are both removable.

Contaxt TVS, Leica Mini, Iphone 6s

Operating the aperture is pretty easy but sometimes annoying that your fingers some times get in the from so I suggest changing it before putting it up to your eye. Now the manual says for changing the focal length is to use the textured ring around the barrel of the lens but I prefer to use the drive knob because you can use it with one finger and your had doesn't block the viewfinder. 

With all that considered the camera feels really great in the hands and it is a joy to use and shoot. I feel like its a great upgrade from the Leica Mini.

The Not So Good

I always post this in every review that I do because it's important to know a cameras flaws since no camera is prefect and I want to give a well rounded review.

Now with that being said lets get to the cameras flaws. First of all the auto focus is really slow and wicked picky on what it wants to focus on and shooting in the streets with a fast pace and having people walking towards you it's a bit frustrating but the camera is old. A work around the slow auto focus is using the manual focus . The second thing that is the auto advance, it is pretty loud and there is now way to have it from not adanvancing after a shot. What I mean by that is the Leica Mini is bloody loud and when you took a shot and still held down the shutter button the camera would not advance the from until you released the button. Now that is a fucking cool and simple feature that I wish this camera had, but you can't have them all. The viewfinder is a bit small for me since I wear glasses but its not awful but the amount of stuff in that viewfinder sometimes is quite distracting. The biggest one is how careful you have to be with theses camera since Contax isn't around anymore, but there is a company Nippon Photoclinic  that will repair them If they do break but again they are fragile. Lastly the manual focus dial is a bit lose and sometimes can get bumped but if you make the habbit of checking it before shooting you will be fine.

Images

Now I have shot a lot of film with this camera since i have had it for about a year now and i can say it can handle any film. So far i have shot some Tri-x with it and Portra 400 and Fuji Acros with it and they have all come out stunning. I did just shoot a roll of slide film with it a week or so ago and when I get it process I will add it to these.

First Roll. Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

Snow in April. Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

A Shot on Panorama Mode. Tri-X developed in Sprint chemistry and scanned on Epson V700

Kodak Porta 400. Developed and scanned  by my local camera store. Water view in my home town on Cape Cod,MA

Kodak Porta 400. Developed and scanned  by my local camera store. Crane Beach, Ipswich,MA

One of the first rolls of Kodak Porta 400. Developed and scanned  by my local camera store that I have since stopped going to because of the shit scans not so great prices but I started using another place.

Kodak Porta 400. Developed and scanned  by my local camera store. A beautiful shot of my girlfriend Candace.

Lastly some Fuji Acros 100. Developed on Sprint Chemistry and scanned on Epson V700.

Conclusion 

Honestly I think this is one of my favorite cameras I have bought and I don't think I could sell it because its a great camera to take with you for a quick trip or a long trip, it is really up to any challenge. I really think its a solid camera that gets over looked by a lot of premium  compact cameras and I think it should be up there with them. You can get them for a song on the second hand market and they will last you if you treat them with love. The only reason they go unnoticed is because its a zoom lens and not many people are too keen on that but fuck them, this camera is amazing.  If you are in the market for a fantastic point and shoot and you don't want to break the bank for a T2/T3 or Ricoh Gr look at the Contax TVS line and you surely won't be disappointed.

Cheers.