Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Olympus OM-1

Olympus · Olympus OM mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1972

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: OM1 · OM-1n · OM-1N · OM1n · OM-1MD · OM-1 MD · M-1 · Olympus M1 · オリンパスOM-1 · オリンパス OM1 · オリンパスM-1

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
M-1 Olympus OM 1972–1973 — about 5,000 (eSIF, from an Olympus account) or about 52,000 (Wikipedia, camera-wiki, Kosmo Foto); 25 in black (eSIF, camera-wiki)
OM-1 Olympus OM 1973–1974 — —
OM-1MD Olympus OM 1974–1979 — —
OM-1n Olympus OM 1979–1988 — —
  1. How many M-1 bodies were made before the rename is the one figure everybody quotes and nobody agrees on. The eSIF site, quoting an Olympus account of the decision, says the finished bodies were sold and the unmounted M-1 top covers scrapped, so about 5,000 were sold. Wikipedia says 52,000 "according to Olympus"; camera-wiki calls the 5,000 a rumour and credits research by Mark Dapoz for the 52,000; Kosmo Foto uses 52,000 and Bob Janes at 35mmc rounds to 50,000. Recorded as disputed.
  2. The 25 black M-1s are reported by the eSIF site and camera-wiki; a reader of Camera Legend places them in the highest M-1 serial numbers. The 25 gold OM-1n bodies of 1992 rest on the eSIF site alone, which is the single-source flag on this page.
  3. Olympus's own museum page dates the camera to July 1972 and prices it at 39,500 yen with case; the eSIF site gives the Japanese release as 20 July 1972, with photokina in September. Wikipedia and camera-wiki date the OM-1 name to 1973, Olympus says the name changed "from 1973", and Kosmo Foto has the first OM-1 bodies in shops in February 1973. No dated US list price was found in a source that could be read.
  4. The MD plate is not a reliable marker. The eSIF site says it is not always present and tells the buyer to look for the coupling cover on the base plate instead.
  5. The 1979 Olympus sales information gives 510g for the body; Wikipedia gives 490g for the OM-1 and 510g for the OM-1n. Maitani's own lecture says the target was 600g after the production side had said 700g would be hard. The 510g figure is adopted here because it is the maker's, but no weight specific to the M-1 or plain OM-1 was found from Olympus.
  6. Motor drive dates for the OM-1MD: 1974 in Wikipedia, camera-wiki and the eSIF history table; mir.com.my has 1974 to 1978; Utah Film Photography's 1973 is the outlier and is not adopted.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Shutter speed ring around the lens mount, not a dial on the top plate; the top plate carries only the film-speed dial
  • Small body: 136 × 83 × 50mm, 510g, with a 0.92× finder showing 97% of the frame
  • Mirror lock-up lever on the front beside the mount
  • Meter runs on one 1.35V PX625 mercury cell; the shutter works with no battery at all

M-1:

  • M-1 engraved on the top plate where later bodies read OM-1
  • No motor-drive coupling under the base plate; the M-1 cannot take a motor drive without conversion

OM-1:

  • OM-1 on the top plate and no MD plate on the front
  • Base plate has to be modified at a service centre before a motor drive will attach

OM-1MD:

  • A small plate marked MD on the front of the body; not always present, so check the base
  • A small round cover on the base plate over the motor-drive coupling

OM-1n:

  • OM-1N on the front plate beside the rewind crank and on the top plate
  • Redesigned advance lever with rounded edges
  • Two small contact recesses behind the prism for Accessory Shoe 4; earlier bodies have only the single threaded post
  • A flash-ready LED visible in the finder with a T-series flash

Serial-range notes

up to about 152000
Camera Legend's readers put M-1 serial numbers below about 152,000, with the black M-1s in the highest numbers, around January 1973. A reader observation, not a factory statement.
OM-1n Gold, 1992
A 20-year anniversary OM-1n in gold, 25 made, distributed by Olympus Netherlands in 1992 with a gold 50mm f/1.8 (one with a gold 50mm f/1.4). Reported by the eSIF site only.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, interchangeable focusing screens changed through the mount; match-needle meter readout at the edge of the screen. · 0.92× magnification · 97% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
horizontal-travel cloth focal plane, mechanical, air-damped mirror · B, 1s – 1/1000, set on a ring around the lens mount · flash sync FP/X switch at the PC socket; X at the accessory shoe. Automatic X with a T-series flash on Shoe 4 on the OM-1n only · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever, 150° throw, or several short strokes
Back
hinged, removable; takes Recordata Backs 1–4 and the 250 Film Back 1
Meter
TTL centre-weighted at full aperture, two CdS cells, zero-method needle in the finder, EV 2–17 at ASA 100 with a 50mm f/1.4, ASA 25–1600, on/off switch on the top plate. One 1.35V PX625 mercury cell, powering the meter only.
Motor drive
Motor Drive 1, Winder 1 — 5 frames a second with Motor Drive 1. Only the OM-1MD and OM-1n take it straight from the box; an M-1 or plain OM-1 needs its base plate modified first.
Designed by
Maitani Yoshihisa (米谷美久) — led the design team; the M in M-1 was his initial
Weight
510 g
Dimensions
136 × 83 × 50 (W × H × D), body only, from the 1979 Olympus sales information mm
Country
Japan
Original price
39,500 yen body with case, July 1972 (Olympus's own museum page for the OM-1) (today ¥124,000)
Accessories
Motor Drive 1 · Winder 1 · Recordata Backs 1–4 · 250 Film Back 1 · Accessory Shoe 1 (M-1, OM-1, OM-1MD) and Shoe 4 (OM-1n) · T-series flashes (T32, T20) on the OM-1n

Where sources disagree

Production
  • about 5,000 sold — eSIF site, quoting an Olympus account in which unmounted M-1 top covers were scrapped
  • 52,000 — Wikipedia ('according to Olympus'), camera-wiki (research by Mark Dapoz), Kosmo Foto; Bob Janes at 35mmc says 50,000

Both sides claim Olympus. Serial numbers reported by collectors run to about 152,000 on M-1 bodies, which fits neither figure cleanly and depends on where the numbering started. Left unresolved.

Weight (grams)
  • 510g body only — Olympus sales information of 1979 (eSIF), Digital Camera World, Wikipedia for the OM-1n
  • 490g — Wikipedia for the original OM-1

Better supported: 510g

The 1979 sheet is the maker's figure and describes the OM-1n. It is possible the early body was lighter and the OM-1n's 34 changes added 20g; no Olympus figure for the M-1 or plain OM-1 was found.

What reviewers say

History

The OM-1 began as the M-1, and the M was Maitani Yoshihisa’s initial. Olympus had asked him in 1967 for a system SLR, and his answer was to build one at half the size and weight of the Nikon F, with a shutter good for 100,000 cycles where the expensive cameras of the day were tested to 10,000. To get there he moved the shutter speed control to a ring around the lens mount, where the left hand already sets aperture and focus, gave the mirror an air damper so the camera would be quiet, and had the pentaprism reshaped so it needed no condenser. The body that went on sale in Japan on 20 July 1972 was 136mm wide and weighed about 510g. Olympus’s own page calls it the smallest and lightest 35mm SLR in the world at the time, and prices it at 39,500 yen with its case.

At photokina that September an Ernst Leitz executive came to the Olympus stand and objected to the letter M, which Leica had used for its rangefinders since 1954. Olympus gave way and put an O in front, and the camera became the OM-1 for 1973. Finished M-1 bodies were sold as they were. How many is the one figure on this page nobody agrees on: the eSIF site, quoting an Olympus account, says about 5,000; Wikipedia says 52,000 and also attributes it to Olympus; camera-wiki calls the 5,000 a rumour. Twenty-five M-1s were finished in black. An M-1 is identified by the engraving on the top plate and by the fact that it will not take a motor drive without a conversion.

Two revisions followed. The OM-1MD of 1974 added the motor drive coupling under the base plate, with a small MD plate on the front that is not always there, so the round cover on the base is the marker to trust. The OM-1n of 1979 changed the advance lever, added two small contacts behind the prism for Accessory Shoe 4, put a flash-ready LED in the finder for the T-series flashes and made sync automatic with them whatever the FP/X switch says; mir.com.my counts 34 improvements in it. The OM-1n carried the mechanical camera to the end of the 1980s alongside the electronic OM-2 and its successors.

Buying one, the meter is the thing to check. It was designed for a 1.35V PX625 mercury cell, which has been unobtainable for decades; the usual answers are a zinc-air cell, a 675 hearing-aid cell in an adapter, or a conversion to 1.5V silver oxide, and a seller who says the meter works should be asked what is in it. The prism foam is the other known fault: the light seal against the prism degrades and eats the silvering, leaving a dark band along the top of the finder. The shutter itself needs no battery at all, which is why an OM-1 with a dead meter is still a working camera.

Across sixteen years Olympus published no production total for any version, and the only quantities anywhere are the 25 black M-1s, the 25 gold OM-1n bodies of 1992, and the M-1 count that two sources both credit to Olympus and cannot both be right.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Olympus OM-1
Olympus OM-1 MD with lens — Martin Taylor, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)
Olympus OM-1
Olympus OM-1 MD, chrome — Steve Martin, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Olympus OM-1
Olympus OM-1n body — Hiyotada, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $180 across 66 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $110–$200). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 93 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-09-18. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Olympus OM-10 · Olympus OM-2 · Olympus OM-2000 · Olympus OM-2 Spot/Program · Olympus OM-3 · Olympus OM-4

Lenses for this body: Zuiko 24mm f/2 · Zuiko 28mm f/2 · Zuiko 35mm f/2 · Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 · Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 · Zuiko 55mm f/1.2 · Zuiko 85mm f/2

Sources (15)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.