Olympus Pen F Half-Frame
The Pen F is a half-frame single lens reflex camera introduced in 1963 by Olympus. It is designed by the highly respected and quite famous engineer Maitani Yoshihisa. The original model is easily recognized by its big golden gothic letter F engraved to the right on the front plate, where later models sport a selftimer lever.
https://www.cameraquest.com/olypenf.htm
I use half-frame for my daily snapshots and when i know, I will not print larger than 24x18 cm. The standard lens Zuiko 38mm (Equivalent on 35mm full-frame of 53mm) renders smooth and warm and in black and white, a unique signature can be achieved with grain that occurs when using the smaller frame. The Pen takes photos in a vertical, portrait orientation, which I like very much.
Some Advantages of Half-frame in daily life
Todays new films and scanner deliver enlargements with very little grain and tonality loss. This means, if you are doing a 24x18 cm print, you will have very little quality loss in enlargement in comparison to 35mm (which is approx. 25% bigger).
Pen F lenses are small. The 38mm f/1.8 pictured above is smaller than any Leica-mount rangefinder 50s. Also, Pen F normal lenses focus to about 35cm, obviating any need for telephotos.
Half-frame cameras use one half of a 35mm frame and effectively double the number of photos you can take on a roll. A 36 expire roll of film will now allow 72 exposures.
All pictures shot with Olympus F. Zuiko 38/1.8 except the last two pictures, taken with the Olympus E. Zuiko 25/4. Scanned and developed by meinfilmlab on Fuji Frontier.
Happy shooting and thanks for coming by...
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Rollei 35 Tessar and Sonnar
Real life examples of these little gems.
Contax T
The original Rangefinder.