Olympus Pen

The Pen series is a family of half-frame cameras made by Olympus from 1959 to the beginning of the 1980s. Aside from the Pen F series of half-frame SLRs, they are fixed-lens rangefinder cameras.

In 2009, Olympus introduced the PEN E-P1, a Micro Four Thirds system digital camera which the company touts as the next-generation Pen camera. All Olympus PEN digital camera series have built-in sensor-shift image stabilisation and (except for the E-P1) can use optional electronic viewfinder which should be slid into its hotshoe.

General context

The original Pen was introduced in 1959. It was designed by Yoshihisa Maitani, and was the first half-frame camera produced in Japan. It was one of the smallest cameras to use 35mm film in regular 135 cassettes. It was thought to be as portable as a pen; thus the name. The idea was to be much copied by other Japanese makers.

A series of derivatives followed, some easier to use with the introduction of exposure automation, e.g. the Pen EE; others with a wider aperture lens and a manual meter, such as the Pen D.