My wife and I bought one of the last Trip 35s sold (probably)
in the UK at the beginning of 1985. (Brand new in Boots
in Portsmouth.)

It is still my wife's favourite camera after 16 years. Partly
due to nostalgia. All of our pictures of our 2 daughters
growing up were taken with this camera until 3 years ago.

I got into photography as a keen amateur 3 years ago
and my collection now includes Contax, Yashica, Rolleicord,
Leica and Minolta. I use all these cameras regularly. (No
glass display cabinets with pampered hardware!)

After my wife accidently immersed the Trip 35 in the Atlantic
last year I have bought a second, mint condition, Trip 35
and managed to hunt down a UV filter, lens cap and case.
(£36 total.) I also stripped down the old, waterlogged, one
and dried and cleaned it and replaced the light stop strips
and it works fine now. Luckily the shutter and Lens and
viewfinder were unaffected.

I have found that with Agfa Ultra 50 and Kodak Supra 400
print films the Trip is supreme at capturing colour and texture
and can give my Contax T2 (Zeiss Sonnar 2.8) a very close
run.

Did Olympus ever make a range of 43.5 mm filters?

And do you know if they ever made an 'ever-ready'
type case for it?

Thanks again for a site that reassures me that Trip 35
ownership is not just for nostalgia and that I am not alone
in admiring this tough little camera.

Kind regards. Trevor Hare

Greetings from Vancouver, Canada. About a month ago, I went on the net to see if I could find any information on my beautiful Olympus Trip 35. My father had given it to me several years ago, and only recently did I start using it. Of course there was no manual, so I just experimented with different settings--using the auto aperature setting, or setting the f stop myself--and I was blown away with the results. Around the same time, I dropped into the local camera buffs store of choice--Lens & Shutter--and just happened to meet the Vancouver rep. for Olympus. He remembered working in a camera store in the 60s and selling it for $35. At the time Olympus had a promotion that went something like "Olympus Trip 35 for $35".

Anyway, I was curious about the actual date of manufacture of my Trip. He looked at it and noted that the shutter button was silver metal, denoting one of the first of the line to be manufactured. I'm 37, so the camera has to be about 35 years old at least, although other folks at Lens & Shutter suggested that it might have been made in the late 60s. At any rate, it's a great camera. Once I began using it more, I noticed that a few of the aperature blades appeared rusted. But the camera still worked great, the shots crystal clear, thanks in part to the Zuiko f/2.8 40mm lens with not a scratch on it.With the rusty blades a concern, I took the camera to Camtex, arepair and rebuilding camera service centre here in Vancouver.

Camtex was able to completely overhaul the camera for me, replacing the aperature blades, the hot shoe, straightening the lens and shutter mounting board, adjusting the lens to infinity, removing a slight dent on the top left cover, and finally replacing all the light seals. They did a fantastic job, and it only cost $88.92 CAD.

The camera still has the original lens cover, and the beautiful leather case, which I brought back to life with a treatment of black shoe cream. I'm writing to ask if you know any way of determining the year of manufacture of my camera. The serial number is 894295 if that helps.

Andrew H. Quinn

Taking the Trip apart:

Opening the back reveals that there is a plastic insert behind the lens, very flimsy - can't pull at that too much.

The bottom plate just reveals the rewind button ratchet. The top plate reveals viewfinder and wind-on mechanism. However ...

You can see from the top that the front of the camera looks like a couple of bits of sheet metal attached to nothing at the lens side. Pulled up the edges of the leatherette on the front - bingo, that's the way in. You take these off, being careful with the glue side and remove the top and bottom plate (don't take of the rewing crank, the spring plates drop out! There are two screws under it and another on the side of the camera opposite - bottom plate is just the two obvious screws). There are two front cover plates each side of the lens, each held on by one screw, remove these. The lens board is seen underneath held on by 5 (I think) screws, on also holds a cable clip - if any of the lens screws are missing, these fit and can be replaced by any old screw that goes in the hole as the head size doesn't matter. A dab of the wife's nail varnish on each screw head would not be a bad idea to stop rotation from vibration.

Take care as the whole shutter mechanism is on the back of the lens board. Also take care to not where the various wires run as you have to uncoil them a bit to get enough space to do up the screws securing the lens. The other tip is to work on a tray so that when you drop screws, you can find them.

Naturally, if you want to pass the info on, feel free - it took a while to learn, so I am happy for it to benefit whoever it can.

I realised too late that I should have bought the third Trip 35 the dealer had in his box - it had a shutter that didn't work on auto. As I got the two others for 5 pounds the pair, the broken on should have been cheap - for dissection and spare screws etc.

Phil.