Six months with an Olympus 35 RC

I bought it at a flea market for less than a decent lunch. The seller said it "probably works". The meter needle moved, the shutter fired, and the viewfinder was only a little foggy, so I took the gamble.

The light seals

The first roll came back with a red streak across every frame. That is the classic sign of crumbled foam seals around the back door. Replacing them took an evening, a toothpick, some isopropyl alcohol and a strip of adhesive foam. The second roll was clean.

Why it stuck

The camera is small enough for a jacket pocket and quiet enough that people do not notice it. It only has 36 frames, which means I look longer before pressing anything. Most walks I come home with four or five pictures instead of two hundred.

I still carry a phone for emergencies, but it stays in the bag. That turned out to be the real change.

Things to know if you buy one

• It wants a 1.35V mercury cell; a 1.5V silver oxide works if you adjust the ISO dial by about a stop.
• The rangefinder patch is faint on many copies. Cleaning the inner glass helps more than you would think.
• Manual mode exists, but only with the flash setting, which confused me for a month.