I recently bought a lot of three items from a local seller on Facebook Marketplace. Among them was this beauty, an Olympus point-and-shoot camera. (The other two items were Nikkor lenses which I’ll post about at some point.) Despite owning a variety of exquisite cameras, I really enjoy a good point-and-shoot now and then. I’ve previously posted about several others.

Since the Olympus LT Zoom 105 Quartz Date Panorama (that’s a mouthful) was part of a lot and my negotiations were for three items, it’s hard to say exactly how much I paid for this camera. I’ve checked eBay for recently completed sales they range from about $75 up to $140. I figure I paid somewhere in the middle.

This camera was introduced in 1997. It’s sexy as hell. Its red leatherette gives it a nostalgic, classy look. It’s touted as being “weatherproof.” It could be splashed with water at the pool or the beach and fare quite well. Just don’t take it for a swim!

It uses a 38-105mm, f/4.5-8.9 zoom lens with the ability to focus from 0.6m (2 feet) to infinity. Later models (like mine) came with a Quartz Date function and a panorma setting. The date function only goes out as far as 2030. That must have seemed super forward-thinking at the time of its release. It has autofocus, auto-exposure and a built-in flash with several auto-flash settings. It’s powered by a CR123A battery.

I love putting a roll of black and white into a point-and-shoot. I loaded this camera with a 24 exposure roll of Kodak T-Max 400. This roll of film came included in a recent camera auction I’d won. I’d snagged a Pentax K-1000 SE and two lenses for a mere $57.17 (after taxes and auction fee). The included camera bag included an assortment of old, but unused 35mm film.

There was evidence with the Pentax that showed it had likely last been used in 1989. So, the film was probably just as old. The rolls of film were in canisters but no boxes (which would have shown expiration dates). And there was no way of knowing how it had been stored.

There was evidence on the camera that showed it had likely last been used in 1988. So, the film was probably just as old.

The roll of film I put into the Olympus was Kodak T-Max 400. 24 exposures. The rule of thumb on old film is to overexpose it for every decade old it it. Since this film was possibly almost 30 years old, I should have overexposed by three stops. Instead, I just shot it at box speed, 400 ASA.

Later, I developed it with Kodak D-76 1:1 for eight minutes at 68 degrees. Again, I should have made allowances during development for how old the film probably was, but I didn’t. Despite this, the negatives came out just fine and scanned nicely.

Even though the Panorama setting really does nothing more than crop the photo in camera, I really enjoyed the results of the few photos I took using this setting.

Not inlcluded in this post are a number of photos of my family taken on Father’s Day weekend, taken indoors and out. They are just as nice.