Olympus's first half-frame compact — fixed lens, mechanical leaf shutter, doubles frames per 35mm roll, 1959.
The Olympus Pen was introduced in 1959 as the first of a long family of half-frame 35mm cameras designed by Yoshihisa Maitani. By exposing a half-frame image on standard 35mm film it doubled the number of frames per roll, and its small size and low cost made it widely popular, launching a series of Pen compacts that ran for many years.
The original Pen is a fixed-lens half-frame camera that records vertical half-frame images on standard 35mm film. It has a fixed lens and a leaf shutter with a simple scale or zone focusing arrangement, and the earliest model used no built-in meter, relying on the user to set exposure manually. Because it is fully mechanical it does not need a battery to fire, and precise shutter and aperture figures are omitted where not confirmed.
In use the Pen suits a photographer who wants a very compact, economical camera that stretches a roll of film to twice the usual frame count, well suited to travel, street and student photography. Its half-frame format gives many more exposures per roll and a small negative, and the manual, mechanical operation makes it simple and independent of batteries.
When buying, confirm the leaf shutter fires at its speeds and the film advance and frame counter work correctly, since the half-frame mechanism advances differently from a full-frame camera. Inspect the lens for haze and fungus, check the light seals for perished foam, and look for sticky aperture blades; because the camera is mechanical there is no meter battery to test, but general age-related wear should be checked.