135compact.com 35mm ultra compact cameras Olympus mju III Wide
The
Olympus mju III is an extremely small, fully automatic and water
protected 35mm film camera with a wide zoom lens. As the mju II, it's designed around the film
cartridge, small and lightweight. It has even an integrated flash. It's
form, round and flatter to one end, makes it easy to slide it into a small pocket. Its main features are:
28-100mm F4.6-11.9 lens, 7 elements in 7 groups, autofocus with focus lock, min. focus 0,6m (0,8m at 100mm) Wide
aperture priority (2.8-11), electronic shutter, 4sec.-1/630 (1/410 at
100mm), flash ready and focus o.k. indication in the viewer window Size 117x61.5x42.5, Weight 220 gr. without battery 50-3200
ISO, automatic DX coding, self-timer, automatic film advance and
(re-)spooling, time/date stamp possibility with Quartzdate model
Closed and well protected.
Back
side. LCD sreen, film indication window, self-timer/remote button,
flash mode button, focus mode button and mid roll respool button. The
camera has 6
flash modes: auto-flash (default), red-eye reduction, off, fill-in
flash, night scene flash and night scene red-eye reduction. If you
slide the cover open, remember that it's default auto flash every
time. Flash guide number ~21 (!) (m/ISO 100), which gives you up to 4,6
m at the wide end (F 4.6) and 1,8 m at the tele end (F 11.9).
Seen from above.
Seen from below. Battery compartment (one CR123 battery) at the edge, opens to the side, tripod socket.
Cover open.
The lens only extends a bit to the wide position and the flash pops up.
Lens extends enormously for the tele position.
Camera back open.
Film compartment.
Original Case.
There
are very few ultra-compact zoom cameras which start at 28mm and have a
nearly 4x zoom. In comparison to high class ultra compacts with
28mm lenses, you only lose one stop at the wide end, as they are mostly F
3.5. By losing one stop you gain an impressing
zoom. Even if it's F 11.9 at the zoom end, it might be very helpful.
The
mju III is a point and shoot zoom camera at it's best. It has good
autofocus. Picture quality is not bad, but did not impress me. A tiny
little camera which is
even water protected.
