I was getting frantic. I had been around my local thrift store about four times, dodging the crowd looking for bargains, and I hadn’t found anything photographic related anywhere. Usually there are two places I check quickly, followed by an examination of the whole place. I have found cameras on as many as four different shelves in both places, as well as the adjacent shelving unit in one place. Then there are things like tripods that can be found in at least three other spots.
Picture a drunk in a bar who could see everyone drinking but couldn’t see any drinks available to him.
I don’t even know why I was still running back and forth. I had examined the same places over and over and I couldn’t see anything I could talk myself into acquiring, yet I couldn’t leave.
And then suddenly I saw a small gold box—on a shelf above my eye-line, next to one of the aforementioned “Camera spots”—with lettering that said in very pale grey “Opus 35 MOTOR” under an even smaller but much blacker “Vivitar”. Holding my breath in anticipation I took the box down and turned it in my hands.
It had a drawing in black of a camera on the two slim edges and the wide face had the same wording as the end I had initially spotted with the added FOCUS FREE / AUTO FLASH / RED-EYE REDUCTION along the bottom.
Next I checked the price sticker. The thrift shop’s sticker said $2, pasted over somebody’s bargain store sticker (later to be revealed as “$5”). The only other label was a London Drugs sticker that just had a stock number on it.
I tipped open the box end and out slid the cutest little camera I have held since the Olympus-Pen EE-2 collected weeks earlier. Literally palm-sized the Opus has a pop-out lens. It later turned out to be smaller than the Olympus-Pen in everything but depth.
It has all the modern popular features:
the “Power” button does that and pops out the collapsable lens
built-in auto flash (fires when needed)*
red-eye reduction (using a bright LED to pre-close people’s irises)*
uses either two AAA batteries or a Lithium CR123 battery*
focus free (1.2 m/ 4 ft to infinity)
a 34 mm f/6.0 3-element lens
shutter speeds 60 to 150 sec
mechanical frame counter
motor advance and switch to rewind anytime*
programmed auto-exposure
DX coding for films from ISO 100 to 400*
weighs 170 g / 6 oz.
108 by 59 by 34 mm (4.2 x 2.3 x 1.3 in.
*the Olympus-Pen uses a Selenium cell to set aperture, has two shutter speeds, no built in flash, no batteries, no DX coding, no motor advance/rewind and is half-frame to boot. In its defense it is made of steel, unlike the all plastic construction of the Opal. Needless to say the Opal does not have a tripod socket or a cable release socket. Neither camera has a self-timer.
The Opal came with a full year guarantee and a multi-page instruction manual in several languages. It was made in 1994.
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