Olympus Pen-EE Half-Frame Camera

Serial no. 896750

The Olympus Pen EE, introduced by Olympus in 1959, was the first fully automatic exposure 35mm half-frame camera launched for the mass market. When debuted, the very successful Pen EE was the smallest camera to use regular 135 film cassettes, or as commonly referred to, a 35mm film cassette. Images were captured on an 18mm x 24mm film frame, half the size of the regular full-frame image, orientated vertically.

The solidly built camera is fitted with a fixed-focus 4-elements in 3-groups D.Zuiko 28mm F3.5 lens with the programmed aperture opening maxing at F22, comes with a set of two shutter speeds, at 1/40 and 1/200 second, and accepts film ISO speeds from 10 to 200. Automatic exposure is set by aligning the film ISO speed dial to the index mark on the apex of the lens barrel, while flash exposure is set the lens aperture opening value.

The automatic exposure system of the Pen EE is powered by a selenium cell system built around the lens of the camera. In bright ambient light, the programmed shutter speed will be set to 1/200 second, and the lens's aperture opening regulated from F22 down to about F11.

When the light is lower the shutter speed will switch to the 1/40 second exposure time and the lens aperture opening regulated from F11 down to its widest F3.5. This intelligent system keeps the aperture opening from being too small to avoid diffraction.

(Selenium meters don't last forever and we cannot guarantee the accurate functionality of this camera's metering system.)

The Pen EE models (including the Pen EE-S) are fitted with a clam-shell back, which is removed completely for loading and unloading film. The camera also comes with a manual reset film frame counter.