Olympus Pen EE-2

Recently while trawling Facebook Marketplace I came across someone selling an Olympus Pen EE-2 alongside some other items. I’ve been wanting a half-frame camera for a while so I thought, “why not”, and bought it.

Once it arrived I was relieved to learn that it was still in amazing shape, with no scratches on the body and only minor marks on the plastic. Of course it remained uncertain as to whether the camera was still in good working order mechanically, but this was a good start.

I loaded some Kodak Gold and was ready to give it a try.

A picture of the front of the camera, lit by a lamp above.

Usage

As far as film cameras go, its usage is pretty standard. Just open the tray using the latch on the bottom left of the camera, load your film, and advance it until the indicator shows that you are on your first frame. From here, you can immediately start taking pictures without any additional fuss.

One of the major features that drew me to this camera was the fact that it doesn’t use any batteries to power its lightmeter. Instead, it uses selenium in a window around the lens. Apart from being a unique and clever alternative power source, this avoids the inconvenience of having to find places that still stock, or even produce, the batteries that some old cameras require.

If your scene is poorly lit the camera will also block you from taking the picture, showing a red indicator in the rangefinder. I found this feature incredibly useful especially in the evening, although it does reveal the camera’s fairly limited threshold for light.

Experience

Unlike my other old film camera, the Pentax Spotmatic F, I was pleasantly surprised to feel how light this camera was. Having been built with holiday-makers in mind this makes sense, proving to be incredibly comfortable while I was out taking pictures at the beach or with friends.

Complimenting this light footprint is a fixed focus lens with automatic exposure settings of either 1/40th or 1/200th of a second. This makes it easy to snap a picture without having to worry about getting the right exposure or focus settings, and also negates the need for an external lightmeter.

I will say one thing to get used to is the rangefinder. Apart from the fact that you don’t see what the lens sees directly like on a regular SLR camera, it can sometimes be hard to align a shot due to how small the viewport is. The viewport is also in a portrait orientation, rarely seen on most other cameras. Although, I personally am quite a fan of this as I shoot portrait often otherwise.

Photos

When I got my photos back I was happy to see how much detail was retained, even on half of a 35mm frame. When zoomed in you can still make out small details, like the leaves of a tree or the bumps in the paint of a building. Needless to say I’m very satisfied with the results produced by such a small, unobtrusive lens, especially one going on 60 years of age.

One issue I did come across when processing my scans was that some parts of the frame are a fair amount more in focus than others, leading to my intended subjects being more blurry than I’d want them to be. This could’ve been caused in part by me sometimes not having my subject more than 1.5 meters away from the camera, the minimum focusing distance for the lens, but I still found this issue on photos with further away subjects. Ultimately, I don’t think that this is that much of an issue, as the pictures generally look acceptable when I have them at a smaller scale, i.e., not zoomed in on my computer’s display.

Furthermore, when scanning in these small frames, any small bits of dust or other imperfections will be magnified far more than on a larger frame. You’ll need to take extra care to clean your scanner before you use it.

[2024-01-14] Olympus Pen EE-2 - Kodak Gold 200

In the future I want to bring this camera around with me more during trips to snap quick pictures of interesting sights and scenes I see. I’ve been considering trying black and white film with it, but I think I’d rather just use colour film. This camera lends itself to travel photography, whereas I tend to prefer portraits for black and white photography. I also feel like if I had to take 72 pictures in a row I’d want them to be in colour.

Overall I can strongly recommend this camera. By having 72 exposures at your disposal you worry less about using up so and so amount of money per shot, whilst also knowing that even with the “sacrifice” of a smaller frame you’ll still be getting a decently sharp image. It’s also incredibly easy to use for a beginner to film photography, with not much that can go really wrong unless you really try to raunch its mechanics.