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

Olympus OM-10

Olympus · Olympus OM mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1979

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: OM10 · OM-10 Quartz · OM10 Quartz · OM-10 QD · OM-10FC · OM10 FC · オリンパスOM-10 · オリンパス OM10 · オリンパスOM10

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
OM-10 Olympus OM 1979–1987 — No figure published; camera-wiki says it was sold in large quantities
OM-10 Quartz (OM-10 QD) Olympus OM 1980–1987 — No figure published
OM-10FC Olympus OM 1979 — No figure published
  1. No production figure has been published. camera-wiki says it was sold in large quantities, and every source has production of the OM-10 and OM-10 Quartz ending in 1987, the year the OM-20, OM-30 and OM-40 also went.
  2. The automatic range is 1s to 1/1000 by Wikipedia and Jim Grey; ImagingPixel gives 2s to 1/1000 in automatic and eleven steps from 1s to 1/1000 with the Manual Adapter. The eleven-step manual range is ImagingPixel's alone.
  3. The OM-10FC is a single-source variant. ImagingPixel describes it as the kit including the Manual Adapter; Butkus hosts an OM10 FC manual, which shows the name was used but not what it covered. The page carries the single_source flag for this claim.
  4. The early-production faults and the Type II shutter come from camera-wiki, which flags its own statement as needing a source, and from Alex Luyckx, who does not name the shutter type. Nothing from Olympus has been found.
  5. The 93% finder coverage is from Wikipedia's OM system article and from ImagingPixel; the 430g weight is Wikipedia's, Jim Grey's and ImagingPixel's, and ImagingPixel gives 606g with the 50mm f/1.8 fitted.
  6. Casual Photophile, Ken Rockwell and Lomography could not be fetched for this page; Mike Eckman has no OM-10 review.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • No shutter speed ring on the mount: the OM-10 is aperture priority only until the Manual Adapter is plugged into the socket under the rewind knob
  • A twelve-step LED shutter speed scale down the side of the finder
  • Fixed focusing screen and fixed back; takes the Winder but not the Motor Drive
  • Two LR44 or SR44 cells behind a cover on the base; the meter switches itself off after about 90 seconds

OM-10:

  • Chrome or black; no shutter speed ring around the lens mount
  • A socket and mounting lug on the front, under the rewind knob, for the plug-in Manual Adapter
  • Mode selector on the top plate switching between AUTO and MANUAL ADAPTER, and the on/off, battery check and self-timer switch around the rewind knob
  • Plain hinged back, where the Quartz carries a data back

OM-10 Quartz (OM-10 QD):

  • Black only
  • A fixed data back with the quartz clock and date controls, the equivalent of the Recordata Back 3, in place of the plain back

OM-10FC:

  • The standard camera boxed with the Manual Adapter; the body carries the same OM-10 engraving

Serial-range notes

early production
camera-wiki records that early OM-10s have known faults in the electronics, the metering and the shutter magnets, and that Olympus changed the shutter to a Type II design to cure the magnet problem; Alex Luyckx writes the same, that the earliest examples suffered electronic build-quality issues fixed in a second revision. Neither gives a serial number at which the change happened, and camera-wiki marks its own statement as needing a source.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, fixed matte screen with microprism collar and split-image spot, twelve-step LED shutter speed scale · 93% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
focal plane, electronically controlled · Automatic 1s – 1/1000 and B; the Manual Adapter gives eleven manual speeds from 1s to 1/1000 · self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever
Back
hinged, fixed; the OM-10 Quartz has the data back built in
Meter
Centre-weighted, read off the film and the patterned first curtain during exposure in the manner of the OM-2. ISO 25 to 1600 on the dial, with +2 EV of compensation in half stops. Two 1.5V LR44 or SR44 cells, needed for every speed but B.
Motor drive
Not compatible — Takes the Winders but not the Motor Drive (camera-wiki, ImagingPixel, Alex Luyckx).
Weight
430 g
Dimensions
136 × 83 × 50, body only (Wikipedia) mm
Country
Japan
Original price
$266 body only (1979, US list, Jim Grey) (today $1,150)
Accessories
Manual Adapter (plug-in shutter speed selector; sold separately, or in the OM-10FC kit) · Winder 1 and Winder 2 · Recordata Back 3 (the OM-10 Quartz has an equivalent built in)

Where sources disagree

Speeds
  • 1s – 1/1000 in automatic — Wikipedia, Jim Grey, Kosmo Foto's listing
  • 2s – 1/1000 in automatic — ImagingPixel

Better supported: 1s – 1/1000

Three accounts against one.

What reviewers say

History

The OM-10 of June 1979 was the OM system’s first consumer body, released alongside the OM-2n and built on the OM-2’s idea: a silicon cell reads the light off the film and off the patterned first curtain during the exposure, and the camera sets the shutter speed to match the aperture chosen on the lens. What the OM-10 leaves out is the ring around the lens mount that every single-digit OM uses to set the speed by hand. Out of the box it is aperture priority and B, with a selector on the top plate that switches between AUTO and MANUAL ADAPTER, and a twelve-step LED scale in the finder showing the speed it has chosen. It listed at $266 in the United States, against $315 for an OM-1n and $515 for an OM-2n.

The Manual Adapter is the piece that makes the camera whole. It is a small thumb-wheel unit that plugs into a socket on the front of the body under the rewind knob and hooks onto a lug beside it, and with the selector on MANUAL ADAPTER it gives the shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 by hand. Olympus sold it separately, and boxed it with the camera as the OM-10FC, a kit name rather than a different body; that description rests on a single source, and the existence of a separate OM10 FC manual is the only other evidence found. Any OM-10 bought today should come with the adapter, because camera-wiki puts its value on its own at about $30, and Jay Ridsdale’s account at 35mmc is a fair warning of how a camera with a 1/1000 ceiling and no manual override behaves in bright sun with fast film.

In 1980 came the OM-10 Quartz, black only, with a data back built into the camera in place of the plain door, the equivalent of the Recordata Back 3; it is otherwise a standard OM-10, and the two ran together until production ended in 1987 with the OM-20, OM-30 and OM-40. There is no published total, only camera-wiki’s statement that it sold in large quantities, which the number still around bears out.

The body is 430g, chrome or black, with a fixed focusing screen (microprism collar and split-image spot) and a fixed back. It takes the Winders but not the Motor Drive, has a self-timer of about twelve seconds that raises the mirror before it fires, runs the meter from ISO 25 to 1600 on two LR44 cells, and switches the meter off after about 90 seconds. The early bodies are the ones to be careful of: camera-wiki records faults in the electronics, the metering and the shutter magnets in the first production, and a change to a Type II shutter to cure the magnet problem, and Alex Luyckx writes of the same second revision. Neither names a serial number, and Olympus has published nothing on it.

Checking one is short work. Fit cells, confirm the meter wakes and the LED scale responds to the aperture ring, because Jim Grey notes that on many bodies the meter is awkward to wake once it has timed out; fire a range of speeds in automatic and watch that the curtains travel; make sure the adapter is present and that the selector reaches its position. The reviewers are agreed on what it is for. Goodwin cannot recommend it enough to anyone starting out with film, Grey calls it a terrific first manual-focus SLR, Luyckx says not to say no if offered one and to buy an OM-20 instead only if metered manual matters, and Ridsdale, having resented it for being plastic and consumer-grade, concedes that everything that went wrong was his own doing.

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-10
Olympus OM-10 — Juan Emilio, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Olympus OM-10
Olympus OM-10, front, with the Manual Adapter socket under the rewind knob — Dsch67, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $90 across 42 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $33–$120). First day tracked.

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

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

Related: Olympus OM-1 · Olympus OM-2 · Olympus OM-2000 · Olympus OM-2 Spot/Program

Lenses for this body: Zuiko 28mm f/2.8 · Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 · Zuiko 85mm f/2

Sources (10)

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.