The
Olympus mju or mju I (Stylus in the US) was released in 1991, a fully
automatic 35mm film camera. It was a new design by Yoshihisa Maitani,
the chief camera designer of Olympus since the 1950s, who developed a
number of legendary cameras like the Pen, the OM series and the XA. It
inherited the round design and the sliding cover from the XA. Small and
lightweight, it has even an integrated flash. Its successor was the mju
II in 1997.
The mju was first built in Japan, later it was assembled in China with
Japanese parts and called mju I when more models of the series were
lauched. Its main features are:
35mm F3.5 lens, 3 elements in 3 groups, autofocus with focus lock, min. focus 0,35m (!) Electronic shutter, 1/15-1/500s, flash ready and focus o.k. indication in the viewer window Size 117x63x37, Weight 170 gr. without battery 50-3200 ISO, automatic DX coding, self-timer, automatic film advance and (re-)spooling
Closed and well protected.
Back
side. Film indication window Seen from above. LCD sreen, flash mode button,
self-timer button. The camera has 4
flash modes: auto-flash (default), auto-s (red eye reduction), off, fill-in
flash. If you
slide the cover open, remember that it's default auto flash every
time and it's 2 pushes for off. Flash guide number ~12 (m/ISO 100)
Seen from below. Tripod socket. Battery compartment on the edge to the left, takes one CR123 battery.
Cover open. Mid roll respool button under the lens.
Lens only moves out 3mm.
Camera film compartment open.
This
camera is easy to use.
Autofocus is responsive and works well. Putting a film is easy as
well, open the back, tear the film leader a bit further, drop the
film and that's it. The
camera spools the film automatically. As with most point and shoot
ultra compacts, auto
flash is set at start.
The
mju I is a good point and shoot camera. Sharp images, good autofocus,
in a tiny little camera. Its round design makes it easy to stow it into
a pocket. When was released, it was a top model. Photos have a very
good contrast. It has a tendency to use flash even in daylight if not
set to flash off, but it gets exposure right in both cases. The mju II
six years
later is nevertheless better: low-light
capacity, a still smaller body, water-protection.
