Olympus Pen F – Third Time Lucky? My Olympus Pen Saga

When I returned to film, it began with sub-miniature. First a Minox B, then a Pentax Auto 110, before the collection grew to include other sub-miniature and full frame 35mm cameras. Along the way I acquired, at budget prices, an original Olympus Pen and a Yashica Mimy, both half frame cameras.

Film is not cheap and sometimes 36 shots is not enough. That, combined with my love of sub-miniature cameras meant that half frame as a format appealed to me. The images from the original Pen were not great to be honest, but the Mimy? That was a different story and produced some cracking images on Kentmere 200 (see my post on this site.)

I became aware of the Olympus Pen F – dating from the 1960’s this camera is a design classic and is a unusual design of SLR with interchangeable lenses, a mirror that acts at 90 degrees to convention, and a circular titanium shutter. The F range of Pen’s came as the original F (known as the Gothic F), the Pen FT with a internal TTL light meter, and the Pen FV, without the light meter.

Deciding to buy one was fairly easy, but these are not cheap cameras, even today, so I hunted around considerably, with my heart set on a Gothic F version. I found one on eBay from a Japanese seller with excellent feedback. It was advertised as fully working, and included a video demonstrating this. I paid about £180, plus another £40 or so import duty. It came with the standard lens and, whilst waiting I ordered a 25mm wide angle lens from a UK Olympus specialist. The crop factor for half-frame is 1.4, so the 25mm would be the equivalent of a 38mm on a full-frame camera. On the camera’s arrival, it was a beautiful and immaculate object. I was busy that week and so just placed it on my camera table and every time I passed, I picked it up and fired off a few ‘shots’ without film, at varying speeds and apertures. About 80 frames in and the problems started – first a sticking wind-on lever, then a sticking mirror. It had a failure rate of about 10%. Tweaking the lever, or nudging the mirror restored normality, albeit only briefly. I was gutted. A video to the seller brought the immediate offer of a discount or a return and refund. I chose the latter and off it went. The refund process went smoothly too.

Disappointed I brought another from a film specialist who has a shop about 90 minutes away. I followed the same process – firing blanks, as it were. About 20 shots in, the titanium shutter curtain stuck 50% closed. I was gutted – again! The shop’s repairer declared it unfixable without spares that he did not have – so another refund was offered and accepted.

By this stage I was really gutted and decided to ask the Olympus specialist if I could return the 25mm lens I had brought, explaining the issues I had. He was prepared to accept the return, but also offered the opportunity to purchase an FT he had in stock, and at a discount. I was a little uncertain, but, he offered a three month warranty and, despite it not being the Gothic F version, I took the plunge. Would it be third time lucky?

On arrival the camera was in good condition and the light meter appeared pretty accurate in comparison to my phone app. Over 160 dry shots were made without issue, and so I proceeded, over the next two weeks to load 2 rolls of Ilford Delta 100. This was a new film to me, but has a reputation for very fine grain and good results. 147 frames later came the moment of truth – development! Using my standard method of Pyro 510, and digitising using my OM5 and 60mm macro lens on a copy stand, the real test arrived……

And the were results were very pleasing – thank goodness!

The first few frames were shot in a fairly shoddy South Devon seaside town that has seen better days. Here are two diptychs.

Then followed a trip to a Classic Car Show at Powderham Castle, Devon, UK and three more diptychs.

The a trip into Exeter City Centre….

And because 144 (minimum) exposures is quite a lot, I finshed the last film off in the garden…..

In summary, well it really was third time lucky! The camera is lovely to use and the image quality is, to my eye at least, of a good quality. The light meter seems fairly accurate in good daylight, but when using it one evening at a party it did not read accurately, underexposing considerably if you followed it’s recommendations. Actually this is now the most expensive film camera I own, by quite some margin, with the rest being all sub £100 or considerably less. I would be more than content to use this camera as an alternative to a full frame 35mm film camera and be more than happy with the results, especially with a film like Delta 100. But for me, this is not just about a nice camera that takes good images – for me this camera is a design icon, and the best part is that I enjoy using it.

Share this post: