Written by Amy Elizabeth
The Olympus Stylus Epic is a point and shoot film camera I added to my arsenal in December 2016. I was doing my research, trying to decide which point and shoot I wanted to buy, when I ran across this little beauty.
Find the Olympus Stylus Epic at KEH Camera or on eBay.
A Fixed Lens Point and Shoot
Also known as the Olympus Mju II in other parts of the world, this camera is a rarity with an aperture of 2.8 on a fixed 35mm lens.
It’s darn near impossible to find an aperture that opens up that wide on a point and shoot!
It’s also more affordable than some of its fixed focal length counterparts.
(As an aside, if you’re looking for a point and shoot, having a fixed focal length is usually a good predictor of the quality of the point and shoot camera. It’s also why they are more expensive than zooms.)
I was lucky enough to get mine for $60 before the point and shoot craze began, but you can find them on eBay for less than $200.
There is also a zoom version of this camera, so if you want the fixed lens, you’ll want to look for listings that mention the 2.8 lens instead of a zoom lens.
Related: 5 Best Point and Shoot Film Cameras!
Design and Features of the Olympus Stylus Epic
The Stylus Epic was presented to the world in 1997, and it screams of a late 90’s camera.
If I would have known this little thing existed back when I was 15, I’m sure I would’ve wanted it and carried it in my pocket at all times. (I honest to goodness ALWAYS had a camera on-hand in high school. Because I’m sure I was doing really awesome things that needed to be captured :::eye roll:::).
The Stylus Epic can focus as close as 14 in, has a built-in flash, red eye reduction, and a three-spot automatic exposure system.
It’s a true point and shoot; it acts like a phone camera for film-lovers. I literally whip this thing out, point it, and fire away. There is nothing to fiddle with or that you really can fiddle with, except for the automatic exposure/focus lock.
The Stylus Epic auto-detects the ISO of your film (and all of your exposure settings), but if you’d like to know a little hack to change the ISO, check out this article on changing the DX code on your film.
Using the Automatic Exposure/Focus Lock
The automatic exposure/focus lock on the Olympus Stylus Epic is the one and only thing I ever mess with.
If I know my subject is going to be backlit or have less light than the background, I use this trick. I point the camera toward the ground in a shady spot, depress the shutter button halfway to lock the exposure (which also locks the focus, so you have to be careful with this), recompose, and then press the button the rest of the way to take the shot.
Shooting with the Stylus Epic
I love this camera because I can capture my fast-moving kids without worrying about my settings or focus.
My husband, who has also fallen in love with film, can use it without learning all the settings on an SLR. (And when he uses it, it means there’s a chance I’ll actually get in the frame.)
He’s taken it on trips to the Boundary Waters, retreat weekends, our family camping trips, and vacations. He rocks it so often that I’ve included a few of his shots in this post.
If you long for the days of true snapshots, grainy images, and waiting for weeks to find out what you captured, I highly recommend this point and shoot film camera to you.
Thank you so much, Amy! You can check out Amy’s other Shoot It With Film articles here, including tutorials on how to develop b&w and color film!
Leave your questions about the Olympus Stylus Epic below in the comments, and you can pick one up for yourself at KEH Camera or on eBay.
To see more of Amy’s work, be sure to visit her on her website and Instagram!
You can also check out all of our film camera reviews here.
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Blog Comments
Till
September 15, 2018 at 3:21 am
Hi, i also have this Camera but i wonder which kind of film you used for the sample pictures?
Amy Berge
September 16, 2018 at 10:55 am
All of these photos are Kodak Ultra Max 400, Kodak color Plus, and Portra 400! I use a lot of Kodaks in my point and shoots since I shoot them at box speeds.
Francisca
August 3, 2021 at 9:52 am
Hi! I have one of these and I´ve used 3 film rolls. Almost all of the pictures turned out out of focus, only landscapes ones turned out okay. When there’s people or things up close they are out of focus. I don´t know what I´m doing wrong. Is there anything I could do?
Michael S. Goldfarb
October 3, 2022 at 10:34 am
I’ve had one of these for 15+ years, and while the Epic is indeed tiny, has a great lens, etc., it has some annoying quirks.
The one that may apply to Francisca is that in dimmer conditions the Epic’s exposure programming ALWAYS chooses wider apertures vs. slower shutter speeds. I found that I ended up with many soft close-focus images due to the lack of depth of field when it shot wide open.
The other, less critical quirks are:
A notable delay between pressing the shutter release and actually shooting that makes capturing the defining moment tricky. (Admittedly, typical for most point & shoots)
The automatic flash is always on – if you don’t want it, you must manually turn it off EVERY time you open the lens shield to switch on the camera.
A slightly less annoying quirk is that the Epic runs the film through BACKWARDS, which means that the negative edge numbers don’t appear under the negs as expected, but upside-down above them.
But hey, all cameras have their quirks – that’s one of the fascinating things about them. There’s no question that the Stylus Epic is a great little pocket camera… if insanely overpriced these days.
Joyce
February 13, 2023 at 12:29 am
Thank you for sharing! I have an Olympus Mju zoom 140 camera and its Spot mode kills me because it locks focus and exposure at the same time , as you’ve mentioned. How do you tackle the problem exactly? To get backlight subject well exposoed and also in focus. Thank you!
Amy Elizabeth
February 13, 2023 at 8:38 pm
Hi Joyce! Oof. That’s a tricky one. If I know I’d be doing a lot of backlit subjects, I would hack the ISO of the film to be lower. If you want to work as-is, I would focus on a spot in the shadows that’s about the same distance away as your subject is from the camera. That way you will trick the camera into metering for the shadows instead of the backlit highlights. I hope that helps!
Amy
Joyce
February 16, 2023 at 2:01 am
Thank you Amy! It does help! Does the trick work when doing close-ups? For example, with a shot of a girl on 140mm-end-lense, if I point the camera on a spot in the shadow of her neck and recompose to take the shot (I want to raise the the exposure of her face a little bit), will her eyes be in focus? I mean, will the focus distance difference of a few centimeters mess up the eye focus in a close-up with telephoto lense end of point and shot cameras (as they usually don’t have as wide apertures as F1.8 or less)?