OM4

Well as I said I considered getting a better specified came body in 1996 and actually I did!
In October 1996 I was privileged to have a large sum of money come my way that i could use to get one and some system accessories with.
Give that the price of the the newer version of this camera - the OM4Ti had shot up from GBP £790 to £1200 in an matter of months even what I had was not gonna cover the cost.
I decided I would by used as things such as focusing screens for this camera could be retro fitted (In fact many change them for special applications) so I could get something almost new for far less.
The two main differences between the OM4Ti and the original OM4 introduced 1983 was the Titanium metal body and the ability only with the newer 280 flash unit to have flash at all speeds rather than a maximum 1/60th of a second.
As flash wasn't a major consideration for me I bought an OM4 and had the retailer fit a new 1-13 focusing screen for me that saved my something like £800 alone.
I wrote a piece on this for my main blog so I won't repeat myself too much here.

There are two really good features to this camera.

The first being it has spot metering meaning you can take a reading from a small area of the picture where a traditional all around metering system may under or over expose your main subject and use that instead.
It's hard to explain the next bit but having done that it can remember the Exposure Value it saw while allowing you to set any combination of shutter speed and aperture settlings manually that will expose the film to that exposure value by hand. It can remember the exposure value for up to one hour after taking the reading. In addition it can take up to eight such readings and average them to if you feel it will help with very tricky lighting.
Many photographers find this incredibly useful as I did on vacation taking pictures inside a Steam Tram balancing the gloom on the inside with the bright light streaming around the windows.
The pictures I took amazed people!

The other area is Flash Photography.
Flash can be harsh looking but sometimes you have to use if either outdoors on a gloomy day, for family groups or taking pictures of models where you want everything pin sharp.
One weakness of older flash technology is the output of the flash gun doesn't match exactly with the light falling on your film especially when you bounce it to make things look a bit more natural.
With this camera the flash gun can be controlled by the cameras own meter putting a end to this problem at a stroke.
I found this camera truly exceptional for the quality of pictures it could take as well as its' ease of use (using it on automatic is just as easy as the OM10).

My original developed a fault several years ago so I did replace it with a cheaper model however when that died on me recently, I bought another OM4 used.