Burano, with an Olympus Pen, using Fuji Velvia

[Ashley Pomeroy]

Ages ago I remember reading about the original half-frame Olympus Pens of the 1950s and 1960s, and when the EP-1 came out I finally bit the bullet and bought one of them, an original 1959 Olympus Pen. Manual everything, tiny.

It's great fun. Just like a digital compact you can shoot and shoot and shoot, with the limitation that you can't change ISO until you've shot 72 images (or 48 if you buy cheap film). I've been using it as a way of trying out different film stocks, because film probably won't be around forever, and also it's an interesting way of building up a picture of how film looked. I've seen a lot of Velvia-style Photoshop presets, I was curious to see the real thing.

Back in the 1990s / early 2000s when I was a hipster I didn't shoot Velvia, it was too slick and very much a cliché of the period. It's supersaturated, almost grain-free, contrasty, on an objective level it's great but in practice it's a bit charmless and puts me in mind of car adverts and mass-produced posters etc. Which is one of the things the Lomography movement was originally a reaction against. The 1990s in general.

It is however undeniably vivid, and I can understand why people went ga-ga for it when it came out. I used some rolls of original Fujichrome Velvia RVP 50, which had expired a couple of years before it was discontinued (there's a modern Velvia 50 which is apparently very similar, and one of the few slide films left). In bright sunshine it's like having a permanent polarising filter. Blues and reds pop out, green is a bit odd. Blacks are black, shadows are black, whites are pure white.

The Pen was designed by Yoshihisa Maitani, who lived just long enough to see the new Pen. It's the chap in the background here, just behind the XA2:

In modern terms half-frame is basically APS-C. It's 35mm turned on its side and chopped in half, 18x24mm versus 25x16mm of APS-C, roughly midway in size between APS-C (smaller) and actual APS (larger). The Pen has a 28mm f/3.5, which is roughly 40mm-ish. The later Pens had selenium meters and slightly narrower lenses. The Pen F SLR system had a couple of wider lenses, but I'm frustrated by the Pen F. That link has some gorgeous photos, by the way. There was a 42mm f/1.2, which is probably closer to f/2.8 or so in full-frame terms but yikes. Sadly the system is too expensive to invest in on a whim, basically too expensive to risk using very often. Having said that, my Pen was made in 1959, 1960, 1961 or so and still works flawlessly (the foam was shot, but the shutter is accurate enough for slide film (as you can see) and the lens is nice and sharp).

So, er. Not a digital camera at all. It's nice to have something I can hold up to my face, instead of holding it out in front of me. I have an OM-2 as well, and it's neat and compact, I have the impression that Yoshihisa Maitani was a very clever man.

--

Women and Dreams

A whole lot of words and some photographs. Started off dull; got better some time in 2009-2010; now very good.

women-and-dreams.blogspot.com

 

[Aaron Sur]

Hi Ashley,

A +1 from me.

I have a functioning Pen EES with Selenium meter it has the 35mm f2.8 lens. Also a FT SLR with screw mount , the in between model during the transition from the Pen to the OMD.

I shot more Velvia than I care to think about and along with my Nikon SLR's there was always a Olympus mjuII as backup , fast lens spot meter and weatherproof in a tiny pocket model.

Velvia is back for me in SOOC jpegs with Fuji XE-1 , the modern incarnation of the contax G2 that I could never afford at the time.

What type of scanner did you use?

Aaron


PEN EES

Velvia XE-1

 

[Gesture]

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing.

 

[UncaMikey]

I've often wished for a digital version of a Stylus Epic. Great lens, simple operation, terrific ergonomics in a wonderful small clamshell, no bells and whistles, and even full frame! Why couldn't they put a digital sensor in place of the film?

 

[Ken Croft]

.........and I have gone almost full circle. Way back in the 1960's I had an Olympus Pen 1/2 frame camera. The camera is long gone but I still have the crumpled case, which is a near perfect fit for my current small camera, the Olympus XZ-2.

Oly XZ-2 in original Oly Pen case.

Ken from the UK now living in SW France

 

[elliottnewcomb]

I like many of these photos, and it is fun to learn and see what existed and what it can do in the right hands, thanks for showing them.

 

[Steven Wandy]

Beautiful shots - reminds me of why I generally stuck with various Kodak films, like you say VERY saturated look - but you do a great job with them. (Sort of like some of the Art filter effects and Color Efex programs we are all using now.)

It is really a shame what is happening to film - though I don't know if I would have the patience to even go back after years of digital - but many people still love it.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[PON307G]

Ashley,

Great series of images, thanks for sharing. Makes me want to buy some film, and get one of my old film rangefinders out just for the fun of it ;-)

Larry C.

 

[dchass]

For me a very nostalgic post due to the fact that I used to own the Olympus Pen FT half frame in the 1960s and 70s as my first 'serious' camera. These were the days when prolific shooting was an expensive hobby, with the high costs of film, processing and printing, and a half frame camera virtually halved the outlay.

Thanks for the impressive, vivid shots and for the image of the Pen itself which brought back many happy memories.

 

[Kelly]

These make me itch to go back to film (for a little bit )!

 

[Ken Croft]

No way would I go back to film but I still have some of my old Olympus film cameras. These are the Oly RD with its wonderful f1.7 lens, the classic Oly RC, and the clamshell "∞ STYLUS". I wonder if this was the first Olympus to have the STYLUS name.

All three of these have taken a back seat in favour of the top-of-the-range OM-D E-M1.

RC left, RD right, ∞Stylus rear.

OM-D E-M1 foreground. ∞Stulus, RC and RD.

Ken C

 

[Smaug01]

No way would I go back to film but I still have some of my old Olympus film cameras. These are the Oly RD with its wonderful f1.7 lens, the classic Oly RC, and the clamshell "∞ STYLUS". I wonder if this was the first Olympus to have the STYLUS name.

All three of these have taken a back seat in favour of the top-of-the-range OM-D E-M1.

RC left, RD right, ∞Stylus rear

That's a Stylus Zoom; not the first. The first was the XA, then XA2. Then Stylus with 35mm/3.5, then your Stylus Zoom, w/35-70, then the Stylus Epic, w/35/2.8. I sold a million of them in my days as a camera salesman, even though they didn't have as much commission as the junky Ricohs of the day.

I had a 35RC, though it wasn't in the same class as the Canonet QL-17 or Konica Auto S-2 or Yashica Electro-35. It was a later, less expensive model. I liked the top deck shutter speed dial though, instead of cramming on the lens with everything else, like the rest of them did.

I think of going back to film sometimes. But then I think of finding film and someplace to get it developed, and I think better of it.

--
-Jeremy

 

[Ken Croft]

According to Olympus, the first "Stylus" was the mju, the XA etc did not have the name Stylus, they were called "Capsule" cameras by Olympus. When you look at the Olympus site and the timeline they really made a lot of cameras. In fact my first digital camera was an Olympus C2000 which cost a frightening amount of money, and I followed on with several others, notably the amazingly brilliant C2100UZ and the ground breaking camera that was the E100rs, that could even take pictures before you fully pressed the shutter button. I cannot find that camera listed on the Olympus site. Maybe like Canon they changed the camera names for different countries. They have come a long way as have most other camera companies. In recent years I passed through the XZ2, the Stylus 1 and the OM-D E-M10 before arriving at the OM-D E-M1. But excellent though they are for most users, my number one camera is not an Olympus.


Ken C

 

[foleyal]

Fortunately, people don't have to choose between film and digital: they can live in both worlds. Recently, I have been using my Nikon FM2n with Ilford b&w film, and having an enjoyable time. Ilford has a new lab in Ca where I send film for developing and and scanning. If you yearn for simplicity, the FM2n is the ultimate, and they are available on ebay.

 

[Smaug01]

Fortunately, people don't have to choose between film and digital: they can live in both worlds. Recently, I have been using my Nikon FM2n with Ilford b&w film, and having an enjoyable time. Ilford has a new lab in Ca where I send film for developing and and scanning. If you yearn for simplicity, the FM2n is the ultimate, and they are available on ebay.

I had one; it was my favorite mechanical camera.

I still have my OM1n and lenses though, so I would probably go for an OM4 ìf I were to go that route.