I see a few complaints in social media that the new OM Pen is not a Pen F successor. When you look at the spec the new Pen is better in almost everyway, as it should be. Better weather sealed, better focus, subject and eye detect, and the same price as a second hand ten year old Pen F.
People forget the Pen F was a commercial failure. It did not sell. That metal seamless body was expensive to produce. You cannot expect the company to risk it again. Would you pay £1500 – £1800 for a Pen F mark II, with the same features as the new Pen but with better weather sealing and a metal body. Thats a lot to pay for two small things.
I have been playing in the last week to create some black and white profiles for my OM Pen.
The first image is my highly customised mono profile, the second one of the defaults. The default had its good points, but I thought it needed more gray range and not just heavy blacks. It also has some built in grain which on mine I have removed.
I am not 100% sure about the heavy vignette that I added but I do think its a great looking out of camera image.
I have always had a soft spot for the Olympus. Of their film cameras the OM4Ti was my favourite and it pioneered multi spot metering and high speed flash.
In the digital age Olympus has not been so popular with them choosing a smaller sensor size.
This actually gives them a number of advantages including class leading image stabilisation and a size and weight advantage over full frame 35mm, unless your comparing it to the small light, jewel like Leica M glass which has a price tag to match.
If your into wildlife photography and regularly get into the remote regions of the countryside having to carry long telephoto glass, the Olympus MicroFourThird’s system is hard to beat.
So why have I picked the new Olympus or OM Pen. While it does not have the build quality of the orginal digital Olympus Pen F, its a small and well built camera. With a cheap 17mm f/2.8 lens bought secondhand, it makes a great little carry everywhere camera when I do not want to risk my Leica or carry my heavy full frame Nikons.
I had a quick walk around Boutham Park and the surrounding area yesterday after picking up my new Pen on Saturday.
I am still getting the hand of it and customising as I want but have already created a high contrast black and white custom profile I can quickly select.
My first every day carry camera was actually an old film Hanimex AF film camera. It was a re-badged cheap film camera but worked well. I then went on to a Nikon S3 digital compact, but I was always on the lookout for a large sensor’ed compact like the Fuji X100 or Ricoh GR.
I have tested both of these but prefered the viewfinder of my Leica to either of them, the Ricoh having no viewfinder and the Fuji being a poor competitor in the viewfinder stakes to the Leica.
Over the years I have kept returning to and testing the Olmpus Pen range.
As I posted a while back, I went on a photo walk with the Olympus rep and a OM5. This was a great little camera but I prefer the styling of the Pen. I kept putting it off as none of them had viewfinders. When the Pen-F came out, I loved it but it was too expensive for me at that time. I did get the chance to play with the OM3 recently with is totally gorgeous, see top photograph I took with it at a show. The second shot is a portrait of the amazing photographer Gavin Hoey. This was a shot with the Pen-F and the 17mm f/1.8 lens at high ISO and at 1/3 of a second. Considering the bad artificial light its come out really well. Likely if I had been more familiar and experienced with the camera, this shot would have been much better.
My everyday carry at the moment is a Leica M, but sometimes I want something I can use one handed, especially as I am often out with Ted the Greyhound.
The original digital Pen keeps coming to mind and if I can find a VF-1 optical viewfinder that fits in its hot shoe I might pick one up second hand, there only £100 now and still a nice performing camera. It would be something you would not be to concerned with risking in environments where you would not want to take a more expensive camera.
I also tried out out the Pen F again last week, as they had a black one in the local London Camera Exchange. Its still very nice, but its a lot to pay for a secondhand camera and it also lacks weather sealing.
In many ways the new OM Pen announced this month would make a good option. I was in Lincoln on Tuesday and the local London Camera Exchange had the new pen in for demo.
Its got a really nice feel and for a lower end model the quality and feel in the hand was excellent. So I have pulled the trigger and have placed an order. I am going for the black one. I might add an original Pen in silver if I can find that viewfinder accessory.
Being a little late with my order its unlikely i get one from the initial batch but should not be too long. I have placed an order for the original 17mm f/2.8. This is a fun tiny lens, and i’ll also be using a 20mm f/1.4 pro lens on it as well as the zoom it comes with.
I got my hands on the original Pen F and loved it, the first Pen with a viewfinder.
Now the Pen is back, instead of a very expensive highend model we have a cheaper model but improved in a number of ways including weather sealing and a improved EVF.
