Who Likes Olympus Half-Frame SLRs?

[Les Sarile]

You guys have done it now. NOW I want one. I hesitate, because I already shoot too many formats and I know my tendency to nerd out over gear and such probably takes away from the results I'd get if I'd settle into one to at most three formats and just concentrate on shooting.

I'm not even sure WHY I want one. Most of my photographic life has been spent trying to minimize grain. I knew about the tendency of some to seek it and celebrate it more than avoid it, but I never caught that particular bug, until now. Some of it is driven by wanting to carry a small simple mechanical camera in my motorcycle saddle bags and shoot when I see something I feel like photographing while out riding. Sure I can do that digitally with my phone but I mean a REAL (aka film and also, for this purpose, manual or mostly manual) camera. I just can't for the life of me figure out why I'd get a half frame Pen to do it instead of my Pentax MX which is a great camera, with a vast selection of lenses, and probably similar sized or even smaller, or even just buy a second MX body. (I have an MX and LX as my main 35mm bodies. I love the LX but somehow the MX just appeals more for this. Heck, as excellent as the LX is, and it's a great camera, I actually think I like the MX better overall too.)

I really don't want to go down the path of buying a body and immediately have someone CLA it. I'd rather find one that's already "been done" fairly recently by someone reputable and if I felt confident about that Id' be willing to spend the same as if I bought a body and had it done myself. I know from reading here and other research that I don't really want an unmodified FT. I use a hand held meter for much of my shooting anyway and I'd rather just use a small separate meter and have a brighter focusing screen. I don't mind the double stroke wind of the F either, though an FT that's been effectively converted to an FV with a regular mirror and no meter would be fine, maybe even better..

I've tried range finders and I just never really got along with them. I thought about one of the zone focusing models and a separate rangefinder, quite accurate and available these days and just transfer the distance to the lens, but combined with a handheld meter that's getting TOO slow and manual, not to mention another thing to carry.

I'm pondering this, but the excellent images posted in this thread have certainly piqued my interest!

The MX is 1mm smaller in all dimensions then the OM1 so you can see the Pen is more slender around the mirror box . . .

Pen FT_OM-1 by Les DMess, on Flickr

Is that alone worth sacrificing half the frame?

 

[Roger Cole]

No. But in some odd way I can't really explain, "sacrificing half the frame" is part of the appeal. Film cost is NOT. But there's something appealing about the little half frame and seeing how much I can do with so little.

 

[braxus]

My reasons for getting my half from Pen FT was a couple. First nerding out with another format, for something different. Mainly it was to exaggerate the qualities of film, like extreme grain, softer image quality, and to make the film look like older films from the past using a full frame 35mm, where technology hadn't gotten as good as it is now. Using a roll of Tri-X now in a half frame, to me would make it look like older rolls of Tri-X from the past, with bigger grain, etc. I just got my Pen FT in the last 2 days, and put in a roll of Bergger 400. I haven't shot anything on it yet, but I plan to get out tomorrow and Sunday with it. Its a neat little camera, though my Canon Sureshot is smaller. Well built though, and reminds my of a poor man's Leica in some ways. Scanning up the images should be fun.

 

[M-88]

The MX is 1mm smaller in all dimensions then the OM1 so you can see the Pen is more slender around the mirror box . . .

Is that alone worth sacrificing half the frame?

No, of course it isn't. Especially since I used to own OM system and was happy with it. Right now I also have 35RC which is only slightly bigger than Pen D, but it's not really about sacrificing anything, it's more about seeing what I can (or cannot) do with half-frame camera. By the way, thank you for the poster, I liked it. Olympus had a nice way of advertising their products.

As a side note, I would never go for half-frame SLR. Even if I ignore the fact that there's no one here who can service it, I simply see no need in it. If I want an interchangeable lens camera, I'd much rather go full frame.

I've shot the Pen EE-family, and the Pen D. The lens in the D is noticeably sharper than the 4-element f/3.5 lenses in the EE-series. That surprised me, because the EE's lenses are Tessar-clones, so I would expect them to be quite sharp at f/8 and smaller. Their sharpness is adequate; they are not Coke bottles. But the Pen D is sharper in my experience.

Mark Overton

That's odd indeed. Pen D/D2/D3 has double-gauss lens with six elements, so Biotar or something? My full frame Tessar (and its clones) fares far better than my double-gauss lenses both in terms of sharpness and contrast. Can't wait to get my hands on D3.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

This thread has prompted me to drag out my half frame camera... but it's not an Olympus.

 

[M-88]

This thread has prompted me to drag out my half frame camera... but it's not an Olympus.

Argh, the suspense is killing me! Is it a half frame of 8x10 camera? Or a half frame of 6x9 medium format?

 

[Les Sarile]

No, of course it isn't. Especially since I used to own OM system and was happy with it. Right now I also have 35RC which is only slightly bigger than Pen D, but it's not really about sacrificing anything, it's more about seeing what I can (or cannot) do with half-frame camera. By the way, thank you for the poster, I liked it. Olympus had a nice way of advertising their products.

As a side note, I would never go for half-frame SLR. Even if I ignore the fact that there's no one here who can service it, I simply see no need in it. If I want an interchangeable lens camera, I'd much rather go full frame.


That's odd indeed. Pen D/D2/D3 has double-gauss lens with six elements, so Biotar or something? My full frame Tessar (and its clones) fares far better than my double-gauss lenses both in terms of sharpness and contrast. Can't wait to get my hands on D3.

In the US, John Hermanson - Camtech Photo Services services the Olympus Pen F / FV / FT bodies and lenses and original XA. He serviced my Pen FT many years ago and totally happy with it.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Argh, the suspense is killing me! Is it a half frame of 8x10 camera? Or a half frame of 6x9 medium format?

35mm, actually. Konica Auto-Reflex.

 

[M-88]

In the US, John Hermanson - Camtech Photo Services services the Olympus Pen F / FV / FT bodies and lenses and original XA. He serviced my Pen FT many years ago and totally happy with it.

Unfortunately I live on the other side of the globe and sending/returning a package weighing two pounds to the USA costs well beyond 200$. Not very feasible. I usually deal with my cameras on my own, but Pen SLR is tricky and not that simple for me.

35mm, actually. Konica Auto-Reflex.

Ah, the elusive, original Auto-Reflex (non-T/T2/T3)! I always wanted to get one, but it seems as rare as hen's teeth. Or too expensive.

 

[Les Sarile]

35mm, actually. Konica Auto-Reflex.

The one you can switch from half to full at random . . .

Konica Auto-Reflex by Les DMess, on Flickr

Bet that used to drive the labs crazy back then! Of course it can still drive you crazy today even scanning!

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

That's the one! I'm using a hand held metre as I couldn't be bothered trying to retrofit zinc air or whatever in it.

 

[Roger Cole]

What's to retrofit? Order a $7 Weincell from Amazon. Peel the tab off, wait 30 minutes, pop in camera. Works great. (Assuming the original used the PX625?)

 

[Cholentpot]

The one you can switch from half to full at random . . .

Konica Auto-Reflex by Les DMess, on Flickr

Bet that used to drive the labs crazy back then! Of course it can still drive you crazy today even scanning!

One of those cameras I've been on the lookout for years.

 

[Rayt]

I have the FV and an almost complete set of lenses. I haven’t used it in years but look forward to the lenses again on an L mount digital camera.

 

[braxus]

I shot and developed my first roll through my Pen FT. It's really a fun and slick camera to use. Has a quality to it that you just don't get in later film cameras. It's very much like a poor man's Leica in some ways. Very satisfying shutter click and the wind knob seems pretty good too. Developed the roll and will scan the results tomorrow. I plan to put up a video on it, as I already shot some for that. I've got a second roll in the camera and will take it to the local air show tomorrow. Very satisfying little camera to use. Andy. Love to see your results off your half Frame. I'm glad my film scanner does 10000 dpi, so I can separate each frame from the scan of 2, and not lose too much rez once done.

 

[braxus]

This thread has been invaluable for info on these cameras, for putting my video together. I'll scan in the morning, do some pics at the air show, develop and scan after that. I'll try to get my video up in a couple days. Editing 72 shots X2 will take time. 10000 dpi scans even more so.

 

[braxus]

So Im in the process of scanning my first roll of B&W Bergger Pancro 400. I shot it at 200 as was recommended. I used my Sekonic light meter for the first time and I obviously need to learn using it more. Quite a few of my shots were quite dense, hence overexposed. This exaggerated the grain on some shots. Some shots were more normal. I'll need to get a proper meter reading if using the Pen FT. Needless to say using half frame gave some hard crunchy grain for some shots. Wasn't expecting this much grain, but it is the reason why I got this camera. Im putting a roll of Panatomic X through it today for the Air Show. I'll see how those scan up. Im not doing the common dual scan of two images in 1 file. Im scanning each image separately at 7000 dpi. This is a very long process to get through the roll.

Here are some shots off Bergger 400.

 

[braxus]

Shot 3 rolls in my Pen FT now. Its really a fun slick camera to use. The results show its a little harder to get the shot done well, then with my 35mm full frame cameras. Focus being off or when zoomed in, looking soft. Grain does play a factor in that. I shot a roll of color out of the three, and decided to get the lab to scan the 48 pics. That way I can see color as a lab meant it to be and I really don't feel like scanning yet another 48 pictures. Today I only got 28 shots out of 72 scanned. Very time consuming. I still have yet a second roll of 72 to do as well. This could take me all week to get done. I find that the sizing of the frames is just a bit larger (for 2 shots in one scan) for the fullframe scan, so I actually have to adjust the negative in the scanner for each shot to make sure it all fits in the field of view. Scanning each shot at 7000 dpi, which gives a 4700x6500 frame size.

 

[MattKing]

Scanning each shot at 7000 dpi, which gives a 4700x6500 frame size.

I'm curious why you would do this - to make 15" x 21" prints?

 

[brbo]

Shot 3 rolls in my Pen FT now. Its really a fun slick camera to use. The results show its a little harder to get the shot done well, then with my 35mm full frame cameras. Focus being off or when zoomed in, looking soft.

I went through 3 Pens in the process of getting a Pen kit. Two had mirror out of position.

You can actually put together the mirror mechanism in a way that the mirror is not held in proper position. You should check if that is the case with your camera. Focus on something using extreme left side of the viewfinder and then re-frame to check if the focus is still good on the extreme right side of the viewfinder. Left side should be always good unless there is a problem with a lens or bayonet of mirror box position (last two would be really weird so probably not very likely). The difference will be very obvious if the mirror mechanism is put together incorrectly.

If you intend to make large magnifications you will have to make sure that the mirror position is not just OK, but perfect. It's possible to do it yourself. It took me a better part of the afternoon to first figure out how, then adjust and verify the focus, though...

 

[braxus]

I'm curious why you would do this - to make 15" x 21" prints?

Matt. Im trying to get it at a higher rez to post on an 8K video. I really should be rezzing it even higher, but it takes way too long at 10000 dpi.

 

[brbo]

Doesn't matter anyway since you are not getting 10.000dpi out of your scanner...

 

[Cholentpot]

So Im in the process of scanning my first roll of B&W Bergger Pancro 400. I shot it at 200 as was recommended. I used my Sekonic light meter for the first time and I obviously need to learn using it more. Quite a few of my shots were quite dense, hence overexposed. This exaggerated the grain on some shots. Some shots were more normal. I'll need to get a proper meter reading if using the Pen FT. Needless to say using half frame gave some hard crunchy grain for some shots. Wasn't expecting this much grain, but it is the reason why I got this camera. Im putting a roll of Panatomic X through it today for the Air Show. I'll see how those scan up. Im not doing the common dual scan of two images in 1 file. Im scanning each image separately at 7000 dpi. This is a very long process to get through the roll.

Here are some shots off Bergger 400.

That is super crunchy.

I've found with my F that I have to be very careful about focusing. I can nail the focus but it takes effort. Stopping down helps a bit too.

 

[ciniframe]

I have an F and FV, the F is a plain matte screen and a breeze to focus (especially since my cataract surgery last fall).
The FV? Oh dear, it’s darker than my F, shouldn’t be but is. And has a micro prism focusing aid that drives me crazy (short trip). Since I was introduced to 35mm SLR’s have always preferred plain matte screens, always had 1-10 screens in my OM bodies, a matte with grid.
Just a personal preference though, others like focusing aids.

 

[M-88]

My D3 has finally arrived. Some Japanese sellers on ePrey actually have shipping via DHL which is pretty fast even to this side of the world. A light meter was "dead", shutter was "slow" and the lens had "fungus". All in all, one day's work of repairs. The shutter was easy to service, so was the lens, half of which comes off from the front side and half - from the back side. Light meter gave me a headache before I realized that it draws "+" current from the body itself. I'm impressed by overall build quality, except the top cover which leaves a lot to wish for, it's thin, flimsy and was deformed on my sample. Other than that, black paint is peeling off, but I'll repaint it one of these days.

Anyway, the camera is marginally smaller than 35RC, so it's pretty big and hefty for a half frame. There are things I like:

• Bigger EV range than that of 35RC (3-17 vs 8-17), which is good, no matter how soft the lens may be wide open - since it's half frame, I'll be forced to use slow film.
• Light meter is activated with pressing a button. I always have trouble leaving my RC "on" which drained the battery.
• Shutter and aperture are both controlled with rings around the lens, same as with OM-System, using which I am accustomed to.

Things I don't like:

• Since it's a viewfinder camera, sometimes I forget to adjust focus.
• No hinged back. Granted the "turn-key" lock of the back is a tactile pleasure, holding a back in hand while trying to load/unload film is not very convenient. What year is it, 1965? Apparently it is.
• While the engineers did all to make shooting through adjusting EV numbers more or less acceptable, the EV window is not always directly on top, so it takes some getting used to.

All in all, it's a fun camera, undoubtedly a child of its time. Much more pleasant to use than Pen EE series which are practically point-and-shoot that take away all the pleasure from shooting.