I had an Olympus 35SP for a while, too -- beautiful lens and a beautiful camera. It's huge, though -- much larger than the Oly 35RD and 35RC, and larger than the Canonet QL17 GIII.35-S (and SII) are great silent cameras. Most impressive of all is the 1957 Wide-S with a 35mm f2 made of 8 elements. Almost no distorsion. I've tried the brickwall (only at min dist.) and a photo with straight building lines and cannot spot any distorsion. Hexar fans, hold on your hat... The Olympus is the smallest 35/2 rangefinder around.
The 35SP is also quite loud, at least for a rangefinder. The 35RD and 35RC, as well as rangefinders like the Canonet and Konica Auto S3, are very quiet.
The 35SP has a program mode, but it doesn't let you know what shutter speed and aperture it has selected. Manual metering is possible, as is the useful spot metering, but you still have to read the EV scale in the viewfinder and transfer it to the camera.
In the end, I realized that the 35SP was pretty much the same size as an MX/ME Super with a 50/1.7 lens. I traded the 35SP. I still have a 35RC, which is truly tiny, and a lovely old Olympus 35-S from the late '50s (thanks, Keith!), which has a whole different feel from the '70s rangefinders.
Joe
Andre
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