Olympus Pen EE-S won't advance film

[spacepunk]

Hello everyone, I recently acquired a beautiful little Olympus Pen EE-S. It's super clean inside with only a few cosmetic blemishes on the outside. My problem however is that the film advance won't turn, and the shutter release won't fire. It seems to be stuck wanting to take the next photo but unable to actually do so. When I received the Olympus it had film sitting partially-used inside so I wonder if this issue happened in the middle of the previous owner shooting photos. I've since removed the film and attempted to load an old roll thinking that might reset something with the shutter and film advance, but with no such luck.

I would love to hear some ideas of what I can do to fix this! I'm not extremely familiar with the inner-workings of film cameras (I've mostly just collected them, and use only a Canon SLR regularly), much less this model in particular, but I'm certainly willing to try. Thanks so much.

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

The shutter can't be released under low light when set to auto.
Please, read the manual.
http://www.butkus.org/chinon/olympus/olympus_pen_ee-s/olympus_pen_ee-s.htm

http://www.subclub.org/shop/pene.htm

I'm not extremely familiar with the inner-workings of film cameras (I've mostly just collected them,

There is only one way to learn: practice, practice and more lovely practice.
In other words, use film, loads of it every week.
Welcome!

 

[02Pilot]

Pull the film out of it, set the ASA dial to the highest possible setting, point it straight at a bright light source, and attempt to trip the shutter. Do this with the back off so you can see if it works through the lens. If it doesn't go, the meter cell may be dead or the connection from it to the trap-needle mechanism somehow obstructed or broken.

It's not clear to me if the EE-S has a manual aperture setting for flash use. If it does, turn the dial to set the aperture manually, then try to fire the shutter. This does not rely on the meter cell, so if it works here but not in Auto, you know there's a meter problem. If it doesn't work here, then you probably have a shutter problem.

 

[Ricardo Miranda]

The above post is about right.
The Pen EE-S works pretty much like the Trip 35.

 

[spacepunk]

Thank you both for your help. I've still had no luck with the shutter, I did notice the red warning at once point inside the view-finder while I had the camera pointed to a dark area, but it didn't appear again after that. I'm not totally decided whether or not I have a shutter problem, meter cell problem, or possibly both. No response from the shutter when set to the highest ASA setting and pointed at a bright subject, nor when set for use with flash.

I'll keep playing around with it, if anything happens I'll be sure to update!