I was given an inexpensive but good camera by my next door neighbor who’s moving and cleaning out stuff.  An Olympus Stylus Zoom 140! It was sitting in a drawer unused for years. Solid build with a good quality lens. So I got a new battery for it and found the instruction manual online.  Great … only 73 pages long! Once I figured out how to turn it on it seemed to work. Seemed, to because it’s a lot more electronica than I’ve ever held in one hand before … and it’s probably fifteen years old or more!

I’ve talked about always having a camera with you when you’re going places, but to be honest I’ve always felt a little nervous about keeping an almost three thousand dollar camera and lens combo in my glove compartment all the time.

Now I have nice camera I won’t have to worry about if something happens to it. And here’s the thing … while this baby has much more built-in firepower than I would ever need or want, it was in mint condition and free! Now if I’m driving to who knows where at any time of the day I’ll be covered for almost any contingency. No excuse not to make the photograph!  I mean come-on, this thing has auto focus, a 38-140mm zoom, built in flash, automatic meeting, auto film advance and rewind, plus who knows what more!  And thankfully, it’s not too over the top like today’s silly contraptions that are computers that happen to make pictures. I think the new ones will even cook your meals and assist you with critical lifestyle decisions.

It may be the perfect no excuses camera!  Yup. So I finally read the manual, then loaded it with film with the recommended speed of 400 ASA. That’s right … Tri-X, baby!  And now I ‘ve already made ten exposures I never would have were it not for my new friend being with me!!

Look, you can pick up one of these beauties dirt cheap. Get one and you might even think it’s so cool that you make more pictures! Put it in glove compartment of your car … loaded with film of course … and be prepared for all the lucky opportunities that will present themselves!

Stay well,

Michael