Leatherman Juice S2

Olympia SF/Splendide - ribbon installation

Bottled sunshine

It is that time of year again!

Compare and contrast.

AEG Olympia Traveller de Luxe S

Still about the badge?

Functional, businesslike aesthetic

The AEG has a bigger footprint

Twins under the hood

Almost forgot - it came with an illustrated manual - available here to download [4Mb pdf]

Typewriter medicine

Off sick from school? Bored of daytime TV? No homework? No problem! Just come on over to Wallingford Typewriter Exchange and we'll sort you out with a loaner.

After trying quite a few different machines, Evie fell upon the Olympia SF with gusto (kid's got great taste) and ended up taking it home. Maybe it was the way I described it as a bit more lady-like than the SM2 she was wrestling with.

I hear she's on her second novel now (mostly in red, as it happens), and hopefully well enough to be back at school.

Now all I need to do is persuade her to bring it back... you see, it isn't my typewriter.

What happens next?

Olympia SF

Vorsprung durch Technik

This 1969 Olympia SF came from Oxford at the same time as the Good Companion 4. So, I was walking along the riverbank yesterday and spotted a 52mm Nikon lenscap - just there on the path. Nobody was around so I picked it up and took it home. It is always useful to have a spare.

I was packing the cap away with my old 'analogue' camera kit: a couple of outdated Nikon FMs and assorted lenses, and there were my old macro extension tubes and 50mm f1.8 Nikkor AIS, just sitting there, doing nothing. I clicked them together and fitted them to the DSLR and had a play under the glare of a 60watt Anglepoise.

For image quality, the 25 year-old lens knocks spots off the new kit zoom lenses I generally use - even though it was designed for full-frame 35mm and you have to set aperture and focus manually. Besides, in macro, you set the focus on infinity and shift the camera to and fro to get focus - exposure's just a matter of trial and error. It doesn't take long. Old meets new - I kept looking for the red exposure guide in the viewfinder. You just have to check the LCD monitor though. I reckon using old analogue lenses with a digital body is a very appealing way to take photos.

Doing this reminded me of a conversation I had a month or so back with someone who was praising the merit of 'fixies'. A modern pushbike with neither gears nor freewheel. You either get it or you don't. If you like the idea of fixies - you'll probably like this way of taking pictures for the same indefinable reasons.

Meanwhile, back to the subject. For all-round typing ability, small dimensions and beautiful results - this Olympia SF is the best ultraportable I have used. By miles. I'm not sure what the differences are between this, the angular SF and the Splendides. Until I took the macros, I thought the typeslugs were spotless but even dirty, the type is sharp, clear and effortless. German engineering perfection. Typecast coming soon.

PS: Anyone know why Olympias sometimes use the four domino dots for the margin release? 

PPS: I feel I should add that all these photos are unedited apart from some overall sharpening to compensate for any softening during processing, and re-sizing from 4288 pixels to 640 pixels.