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

Olympus OM-3

Olympus · Olympus OM mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1983

Also known as: OM3 · OM-3Ti · OM-3 Ti · OM3Ti · オリンパスOM-3 · オリンパスOM-3Ti · オリンパス OM3

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
OM-3 Olympus OM 1983–1986 — No figure published; camera-wiki says it did not sell in great quantities
OM-3Ti Olympus OM 1994–2002 — No figure published
  1. No production figure has been published for either body. camera-wiki says the OM-3 did not sell in great quantities and is scarce; Wikipedia says the OM-3 is much rarer than the OM-4 and puts the cause at the OM-1n staying in production as a mechanical OM at a fraction of the price.
  2. The reviews list is short because the sites that normally cover a body of this rank do not cover this one: Mike Eckman and 35mmc have no OM-3 or OM-3Ti review, Casual Photophile and Ken Rockwell could not be fetched, and Emulsive lists only an OM-1n among its Olympus reviews. The Kosmo Foto piece is the one dedicated article found.
  3. No launch price has been found for either the OM-3 or the OM-3Ti. The Olympus museum site has product pages for the OM-1, OM-2 and OM-4Ti and none for the OM-3 or OM-3Ti.
  4. The weights are Wikipedia's infobox figures, 540g and 510g; mediajoy's specification for the OM-3Ti and filmphotography.eu both give 510g, and filmphotography.eu attributes the figure to the titanium covers.
  5. The OM-3Ti's flash features come from camera-wiki and from mediajoy's specification page: TTL direct metering with the T-series flashes, and Super FP sync with the F280 from 1s to 1/2000. Neither the ISO range (6 to 3200, Kosmo Foto and mediajoy) nor the lack of a self-timer (camera-wiki, mediajoy) is in doubt.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The OM-4's body with a mechanical shutter: shutter speed ring around the mount, no B-and-1/60-only fallback because every speed is mechanical
  • Multi-spot meter with SPOT, HI.LIGHT and SHADOW buttons on the top plate and a bar-graph LCD along the bottom of the finder
  • No self-timer, on either version

OM-3:

  • Black finish only, aluminium top and bottom covers; OM-3 on the front of the prism housing
  • No self-timer lever on the front of the body
  • No TTL flash automation: no TTL contact on the hot shoe, and no Super FP mode
  • Shutter speed ring around the lens mount runs B, 1 to 1/2000 and works with the batteries out

OM-3Ti:

  • Titanium top and bottom covers, finished black; OM-3Ti on the prism housing
  • TTL contact on the hot shoe and a Super FP setting: the F280 flash syncs at any speed to 1/2000
  • 510g against the OM-3's 540g, the difference being the titanium

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism with an LCD bar graph along the bottom of the screen · no rangefinder image
Shutter
horizontal-travel cloth focal plane, mechanical, spring-driven · B, 1s – 1/2000 · flash sync X at 1/60; the OM-3Ti adds Super FP sync to 1/2000 with the F280 flash · no self-timer
Film advance
single-stroke lever
Back
hinged
Meter
Silicon cells reading centre-weighted or a 2% spot; up to eight spot readings stored and averaged, with HI.LIGHT and SHADOW buttons to place a reading as white or black. ISO 6 to 3200. Two 1.5V silver-oxide or alkaline button cells power the meter and the LCD and nothing else.
Weight
540 g
Dimensions
136 × 84 × 50, body only (Wikipedia; mediajoy gives the same for the OM-3Ti) mm
Country
Japan
Accessories
F280 Full Synchro flash (OM-3Ti only, for Super FP sync) · T-series flashes with TTL direct metering (OM-3Ti only)

Where sources disagree

First
  • 1983 — Wikipedia, Kosmo Foto (Stephen Dowling)
  • 1984 — camera-wiki

Better supported: 1983

Two accounts against one, and the 1983 date matches the OM-4's, which every source puts in 1983 and which camera-wiki itself describes the OM-3 as the mechanical version of.

First
  • November 1994 — mediajoy's dated specification; 1994 — camera-wiki, filmphotography.eu
  • 1995 — Wikipedia, Kosmo Foto

Better supported: 1994

The only source that gives a month gives November 1994, which would make 1995 the year the camera reached most shops rather than a disagreement about when it was introduced.

What reviewers say

History

The OM-3 is the OM-4 with the electronics taken out of the shutter. Olympus introduced the pair in 1983 to replace the OM-1 and OM-2 at the top of the line, and split them the same way: the OM-4 got an electronic shutter and aperture-priority automation, the OM-3 a spring-driven cloth shutter running B and 1 to 1/2000 that fires with no battery in the body. Both carry the meter that made the pair famous, a 2% spot that can store up to eight readings and average them, with HI.LIGHT and SHADOW buttons to declare a reading white or black, and a bar-graph LCD along the bottom of the finder in place of a needle. On the OM-3 the two button cells run that meter and its display and nothing else.

It did not sell. camera-wiki records that it was dropped in 1986 without having been made in great quantities, and Wikipedia puts the reason plainly: the OM-1n was still in production, was also mechanical, took the same lenses and cost a fraction as much. Stephen Dowling’s account at Kosmo Foto reads the same way, a camera caught between people who wanted mechanical simplicity and people who wanted the OM-4’s automation. What the short run left behind is a body that now sells for more than the OM-4 it was the poorer sibling of.

Olympus brought it back in November 1994 as the OM-3Ti, nine years after dropping it, and mediajoy’s account of the reason is demand on the secondhand market. The Ti takes the OM-4Ti’s titanium top and bottom covers, which take the weight from 540g to 510g, and the OM-4Ti’s flash system: TTL off-the-film automation with the T-series flashes, and Super FP mode, in which the F280 pulses its light over the whole travel of the curtains so the camera syncs at any speed up to 1/2000. A mechanical camera with TTL flash was a rare thing, and camera-wiki calls the OM-3Ti the last of the true OM bodies, since the only OM to follow it was the Cosina-built OM-2000. It stayed in the catalogue until Olympus closed the OM line in 2002.

Telling the two apart is easy. Both are black; the OM-3Ti says so on the prism housing, has a TTL contact on the shoe and a Super FP position, and weighs 30g less. Neither has a self-timer. A body with a self-timer lever and this meter is an OM-4, whose shutter needs its batteries for everything but B and 1/60; an OM-3 or OM-3Ti will run every speed with the cells out, which is also the first thing to check on one. Check the LCD too, because it is the one electronic part on the camera and the one that fails, and confirm the spot buttons register readings on the bar graph.

The dates are not settled to the year. Wikipedia and Kosmo Foto put the OM-3 in 1983 and the OM-3Ti in 1995; camera-wiki has 1984 and 1994; mediajoy alone gives a month, November 1994, which suggests the 1995 date is when the Ti reached shops rather than a real disagreement. No production figure and no launch price has been found for either body, and the Olympus museum site, which has pages for the OM-1, OM-2 and OM-4Ti, has none for these two.

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-3
Olympus OM-3, 1983 to 1986 — Stewart Gibson, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Olympus OM-3
Olympus OM-3Ti — ARTol, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Olympus OM-3
OM-3Ti and OM-4Ti side by side — Wolf4max (Wolfgang Thanner), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $900 across 25 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-18 (middle half $580–$1,300). First day tracked.

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

Show 20 more listings

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 · Olympus OM-4

Lenses for this body: Zuiko 100mm f/2 · Zuiko 21mm f/2 · Zuiko 28mm f/2 · Zuiko 50mm f/1.2 · Zuiko 50mm f/2 Macro · Zuiko 90mm f/2 Macro

Sources (6)

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.