The Camera
What if you don’t have to think about shutter speed, aperture and focussing at all? Just snap away. Seventy-two times per roll. Just get your composition right. Be more creative, less technical.
That's where the Olympus Pen-EE comes in. A very solidly build half-frame 35mm camera. Just point, and shoot.
The original Pen was introduced in 1959, the version I have (the PEN-EE) was introduced in 1961. It has a 28mm f/3.5 lens. That is equivelant to around 40mm on a full-frame camera.
Look at that tiny little 22.5mm filter!
It’s a really compact camera, not much taller than a 35mm film roll. To load the film, you have to take off the back of the camera. After loading the film, you set the frame counter manually.
Photo above with film is for size purposes only. It’s not loaded properly.
Compared to its bigger brother, the Olympus Trip 35. The main body is not that much smaller, but significant enough. Though the lens protrudes a lot less than the Trip, which makes the PEN a more pocketable camera.
The PEN-EE has a selenium meter, so no batteries are needed. Just load the film and start shooting!
The Film
I put a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400 in it (expired in 2014, shot as 200) with 36 exposures. Since the PEN is a half frame camera, I get double the amount of images on that roll.
Since its such a small body you have less waisted film when loading. I actually got 76 shots instead of the expected 72 out of the roll of 36.
When scanning the film I noticed that the photos are very close to the sprocket holes. That could be just my copy of the camera, though. It can make scanning a little more difficult. The film-holders that came with my scanner (Epson V550) aren’t made for this situation. I ended up losing a tiny bit of the bottom of the images.
Another thing I noticed was that the images aren’t always evenly spaced. Not a huge deal, though.
Regular 35mm frames compared to half-frame of the PEN.
The photos
These are almost all photos from that roll.
Although I took my time to get the shot of the chickens, I still managed to get my finger in the shot. It happened a few times.
The landscape shots didn’t turn out very well. But having 72+ frames to shoot, you have plenty possibilities to experiment.
Conclusion
As you might have guessed by reading the title, I enjoyed shooting this little wonder very much! Just plain fun in the palm of your hand.
I’m always a bit more cautious when shooting film. I don’t want to waste any shot. But having twice the amount of shots, this is less of a problem. I found myself shooting a lot more things that I normally wouldn’t shoot. It’s liberating not having these subconscious thoughts about the financial part of film photography.
The Olympus PEN-EE is a fantastic companion for a lot of occasions. just not always as your main or only camera. It’s great for documentary style photography. And it’s small enough to always take with you. At 360 grams it’s a little heavier than you might think, though.
If you want more (or any) control over your exposures, this is not the camera for you.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask!