52Rolls2020 · Roll 2 · Olympus Pen F
Published date 1.26.19
Olympus F. Zuiko Auto-S 38mm 1.8
Kodak Gold 400 (fresh) R8405
Acquisition
The goal of the Olympus Pen F was to grab a camera I have been interested in for quite a while. The only thing holding me back was the availability of good examples at a decent price. The SchmeeBay notified me of one for a decent price, I bid and won. It was also important to have the F model over the FT. I may pick up an FT body in the future, but I wanted to start with the F.
Also of note … I suggest buying this camera with a lens. There is a certain weakness in the design that can make the camera appear fully functional when the lens is not mounted. However due to tension when mounting the lens, the same camera with the lens mounted can fail to fire, fail to return the mirror, not fully advance the film or all of the above. My example of this camera would not fire consistently with the lens mounted, and led me to a repair. In my case I was able to repair it on my own, but it wasn’t a quick and easy thing that I would recommend people try. For this reason alone, I feel that if you buy this camera with a lens, you’ll have a better chance at getting one that functions 100% out of the gate.
History and Features
Olympus is a well known and loved camera company with a cultish fan base from its wide array of point and shoot cameras in the 90s, back to the OM SLR series, in the 70s, and finally back to the Pen F camera in 1963. The Pen F itself seems like it was marketed to photojournalists for the small form factor, and increased frame counts from being a half frame camera.
The Olympus Pen F is an interchangeable lens SLR camera that shoots 35mm film in half frame portrait format. The Pen F has a focal plane shutter from B to 500, a portrait mode SLR style viewfinder, a flash sync contact that syncs at all speeds (interesting for a focal plane shutter camera), a weird rectangular shutter button with a threaded cable release, a slotted mount on the eye piece to mount accessories (more on this in usage), a proper film counter, a simple rewind button, and an offset tripod bush. The best and most important feature of the Pen F is the gothic F logo on the front of the camera, yeah.
Appearance
The Pen F is an elegant camera with old world styling, sporting classic chrome over brass, and a gridded black leatherette covering … SLR style, it’s hard to beat the looks of the Pen F. The gothic F logo engraved on the front of the camera and echoed again in grandiose style on the lens cap, make this camera one of the most iconic in the Olympus lineup, and camera history in general.
Usage
In practice the Pen F is a film SLR, with three minor differences. The first difference is that the camera is a double-stroke, meaning it takes two actuations of the film advance lever to cock the shutter and advance the film. The second difference is that the finder is in portrait format. To make a landscape photo you have to turn the camera 90 degrees, much like you would do on a normal SLR to take a portrait mode photo. The last noticeable difference, most modern film SLRs have the shutter knob or dial on the top plate of the camera. On the Pen F the shutter dial is mounted on the front face of the camera right under the shutter release. Also as this is an interchangeable lens camera the aperture dials are on each individual lens. Loading and focusing are the same as a modern film SLR, so I won’t go over those things.
A few observations; the focus throw is very short … maybe due to the compact nature of the system and the smaller size of the lenses. I used the 38mm 1.8 to make these images, I’m not sure if that differs on other lenses. The viewfinder lacks a split image or micro prism screen, which makes focusing difficult if you have old man eyes like mine. I hear tell that the FT model has the split image on the screen. However, I skipped the FT model, because I wasn’t interested in the meter, and this camera since it is so small made some sacrifices to make that meter possible. In the Pen cameras the mirror for the finder is very small, and the meter in the FT required the mirror to be semi-transparent. All of that said the transparent mirror makes the finder on the FT about ½ to a full stop dimmer that the F model. Also the meter sounds like a good idea … but in practice that meter is not coupled, meaning it will give you a suggestion and you have to set the camera manually anyway. The dimmer finder, a non-coupled meter, and a hard to find mercury battery or replacement battery were all factors in my choosing the Pen F, over the newer FT model. Additionally the FT model is missing the goth F logo on the front of the camera; dealbreaker.
If you know me you probably know I like to shoot a lot of street photos. I had a little difficulty shooting this camera zone-style. It may be just me, but the short focus throw of the lens was difficult to get accustomed to … I think this was totally me though. Focusing the camera straight though was pretty hard for me too because of my old man eyes. Another factor of zone-style shooting on half frame doesn’t come out until you look at the negatives. Zone focusing at a small aperture (f8 or higher) accounts for a forgiveness factor when focusing, you can preset your focus and shoot when your subject is within a certain distance give or a take a foot in front of the mark or behind the mark. Since the focus throw is so short, zone focusing with this camera is much less forgiving than a full frame camera. Also since the film size is much smaller any focusing mistakes you make are increased due to the smaller size of the film area. Focusing with the camera up to your eye is pretty essential, and my photos show it. If you don’t shoot street or zone-style you’ll never notice any of this.
Half frame format is both a boon and a bane. The big pro is density … you get DOUBLE THE FUN! Since the cameras film gate is 18x24 vs the 36x24 of full frame you get twice the number of photos on a roll. A 24 exposure roll will yield 48 photos or more. More because if you load your film correctly, on most manual cameras you can get up to 27 shots from 24 roll, and 39 from a 36 roll. Same for a 36 exposure roll you will get 72 or more shoots. It’s a boon! You get so many more shots! It’s a bane to me because 72 shots is a real commitment … it literally takes me forever unless I’m at a big event. The first time I shot this camera it took me like two months to go through one 36 exposure roll. So I make it a point to only load this camera with a 24 exposure roll or if I can find them older 12 or 20 exposure rolls. Half frame is also a bane for modern film, 400 film comes out kind of on the grainy side. I’ll have to take that into consideration to shoot something a little slower next time like between like 160 to 250. I also have some Ferrania P30 (iso80) I’d like to try in the Pen F as well.
Also remember that this cameras viewfinder is vertical, all normal photos you take with the camera horizontally will be in portrait mode. This is an interesting change to mostly landscaped photos, and makes some of the photos you will take seem a little more down to earth or personal. In the digital mobile phone age this may not seem like that big of a deal, but I see where it could lend some new inspiration here and there.
This camera has a focal plane shutter, and yet it’s flash will sync with any speed. This is unusual for a focal plane shutter camera, which usually only sync at 1/60 of a second. I don’t shoot flash though so I probably will never test this.
I’m still getting used to this camera, and I think it has more to offer. My samples didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped Also normally choose recently shot photos from the week before but this time I included a few samples from last summer to round out the out the field … I’ll have to shoot it more SLR style next time with slower film.
For me it is difficult scanning Half frame images
no split image in the viewfinder
Miniature formats can be problematic