Olympus PEN, then and now ...part 2
The evolution of "half-frame":
In the previous blog I mentioned the original OM-1. Before we get to that camera though, we're going to take a slight detour.
On our Japan trip I considered buying a camera or lens as a souvenir. It didn’t take long to discover what I now realize is common knowledge on the web. It's more expensive to buy new camera equipment in Japan than here in America. Hmm, what to do now? Browsing around in the cities, I saw that used film cameras in excellent condition were plentiful, and inexpensive. My souvenir dilemma was solved. Now, the question was, which vintage camera? The OM-1? Well...
Earlier in the year I acquired the new Olympus PEN-F Digital. Others have written on the design of this camera, so I won't go into that here. See "Olympus PEN-F Design Story: Timeless Enjoyment", by Aage Granaas if you'd like to read more. The reimagined 2016 "F" is based on the 1963 "F", which had all the hallmarks of great industrial design. It is a camera you want to pickup, hold, and use. Both then and now, photographers have been drawn to it. With that in mind, an original 35mm PEN-F became my souvenir of choice.
The hunt led me to a second visit of the Akihabara district in Tokyo; specifically the Akihabara Radio Center. It's a historic building that once was at the center of Japan's post-WWII "electric town". These days it's a rather unique, multi-floor, electronics bazaar, complete with a small shrine on the second level. Here is where I found a very clean and fully functional 35mm PEN-F with a F.Zuiko f1.8 38mm lens. Price? Only $150 USD, with a manual! While in Japan I continued to shoot with my digital cameras. Once home though, I was itching to try out the vintage PEN-F.
in the akihabara radio center... walking the asiles, down the stairs, shrine on second floor, selecting a 35mm pen-f
I was more interested in a practical comparison, so this would not be a typical "lab" test. With two similarly designed cameras from different eras, what would the results be shooting in the same conditions, without spending a lot of time on capturing and processing the resultant images? With those parameters in mind, I set out.
The first step was to create a reasonably level playing field. Setting both cameras at 400 ASA/ISO would be a good balance of speed and latitude. Since I wanted natural color reproduction, I chose Kodak PORTRA 400 color negative for the 35mm PEN and kept the digital PEN's color settings to "Natural". The choice of lenses was simple. I bought the vintage PEN-F with a 38mm f1.8, the "standard" 50mm equivalent lens for the 35mm half-frame format. On the digital PEN-F was the 25mm f1.8, having the same field of view on the micro four-thirds format. The original PEN-F from 1963 did not have a built-in light meter. So, for exposure on both cameras I used the digital PEN-F's ESP metering as a baseline and double checked it against a Lumu Lite. Finally, since these cameras are built for mobility, no tripods. All shots would be hand held. After that was settled it was time to go shooting
1963 Olympus PEN-F w/F.Zuiko 38mm, f11 @ 1/500th 2016 Olympus PEN-F digital w/M.Zuiko 25mm, f11 @ 1/500th
When I got the film back from the lab I was pleased to see that the vintage camera did indeed work. Most of the frames were quite useable. Though it was clear the film frames would require some work to linearize them against the files from the digital PEN-F. The digital PEN-F files received a basic Adobe RAW conversion and became the target to match the analog frames to. The negative was scanned on an Epson V500 at 4000 dpi. Once converted to TIFF, I made only simple exposure and tone curve adjustments, along with some slight cropping to match the negative captures to the digital. The example shown above was converted to monochrome, providing an easier comparison of sharpness, structure, and tone.
The final results were remarkably good. The film frame was able to be dialed in to match the digital frame quite well. Both cameras compared nicely in overall image quality and sharpness for small prints. However, pushing in a bit one can see the vintage system would not be well suited for large prints.
100% crop: 1963 Olympus PEN-F, Kodak portra 400 vs. 2016 Olympus PEN-F digital, 20 mpix live-mos at 400 iso
I was quite surprised when comparing color reproduction. In this area, optomechanical qualities play less of a role whereas the color science behind the film and digital processing do. With simple adjustments I was quickly able to get a good match of the PORTRA 400 negative to the digital PEN-F file. Aside from slight tone curve and saturation variations, and the sharpness difference exhibited in the monochrome comparison, the images are very close in look and feel.
1963 Olympus PEN-F, Kodak portra 400
2016 Olympus PEN-F digital, "natural" color, 400 iso
It was fun doing this comparison and and I've learned a lot in the process.
As expected, I enjoyed shooting with the original PEN-F. When loaded with contemporary film stock, this 50+ year old camera yielded very good results. In the final analysis though, the digital PEN-F is notably superior in sharpness, overall image quality, and ease of getting good results, quickly. I spent a fair amount of time getting the film images scanned and post-processed to achieve the final results. The digital frames were pretty much good to go as they were.
What was the shooting experience like with both cameras? Both felt wonderfully solid, well machined, and comfortable in the hand. Both strike a great balance between being small enough to be a convenient and unobtrusive tool, yet not too small as to be "fiddly". Interestingly, both weigh exactly the same at one pound and one ounce, with a "standard" lens. That's where the similarities end. I didn't realize how accustomed I've become so to the fast, flexible, and mostly accurate auto-focus systems we have on modern digital cameras. I would have missed shots with the original PEN-F where the digital PEN-F would have captured not one, but a few in-focus frames. Even comparing manual focus on both systems, I found it much quicker to find correct focus using the digital PEN-F's focus-zoom in the viewfinder, compared to the split-prism on the original PEN-F. The other limitation on the vintage camera was shutter speed. With 400 speed film, there were times when the top shutter speed of 1/500th caused me to pass on a shot. If it was 1963, I'd have an ND. Today with mechanical shutter speeds of 1/8000th, and 1/16000 electronic, I don't need to. I also missed having third stops on the aperture and shutter. Sometimes it was impossible to set optimum exposure using full-stops on the original PEN-F. Finally, there is the flexibility of being able to change the imager sensitivity, on each frame if need be. Can't do that on a camera loaded with 400 ASA film.
Is it fair to compare a 50 year old camera system to what we have access to today? No, not really. But with all the nostalgia of late, recalling the good-old-days of film, I though it would be interesting to reflect on how advanced our current equipment really is. I'm very pleased to have a bit of camera history in the souvenir PEN-F from Japan. The next time I'm out shooting though, it'll likely be with the digital PEN-F. However, when I am using it I'll be mindful how strikingly good the original PEN-F was and will a carry deeper appreciation for the advancements in the state-of-the-art realized in the current PEN-F.