Son of a Chef

These days, we don’t write a lot of camera reviews. Gear isn’t really our focus, we love making art and creating things. Of course, we love history, food and eating, too.

However, every once and a while it’s worth checking in on a camera. This one is gold. The Olympus Pen-D 3.2cm f1.9 might be my favorite half frame camera.

The biggest advantage over many of the other Pen cameras is that it doesn’t need its solenoid to meter shots. This makes a lot of models a time-bomb for when it breaks or inaccurate.

On the Pen-D, the solenoid is merely a meter. It doesn’t control the shutter like some of the other Olympus models at the time.

The build is fantastic. It’s amazing that so much is packed into a small case.

The glass is razor sharp. I still haven’t figured out optimal scanning for the smaller negatives but the negatives are sharp enough to make scans.

Focusing isn’t too hard. The knob makes it pretty easy. I can forget sometimes to adjust my shot. That can be annoying at times.

Triptychs were on the top of my mind when I originally bought this. I wanted to stack images together to sell a story like this. Or do wider landscape panoramas in three images.

Right now, the limit is my scanning. I’ve been fighting my travel method. I’m getting extra grain coming in from the back cover. I think in May I’ll go ahead and upgrade everything to get better scans.

The shots that the Pen-D takes can be magic. Aperture f1.9 at 32mm is enough to do most anything with it. It’s comfortable like a 50mm on 135 film. It fits into my pocket easily, too.

I’ve yet to see a hard flare off the lens. It seems quite well balanced and the coatings do well.

Vs other cameras, it’s one that I like to carry when I’m doing various things. With a nice strap, it’s even comfortable to run around with it on my back. Given the lack of electronics and metal construction, I don’t worry much about it shifting around.

Overall, it takes lovely photos. The glass is sharp and the size is perfect. I’ve got a PenW that I use, too. But that’s harder to get used to and some of the elements of it aren’t as ideal.

The one big drawback to the Pen-D is that everything is on the lens and the focus is to the side. Sometimes I find myself forgetting to change the shutter speed. Other times I find myself slightly bumping some or another. So it goes.