Table of Contents
amazon Olympus Pen-F reviews
Nostalgic, convenient
Design is actually what a person would admire Pen-F to be. Pen-F has a design that creates rarity in the world of today’s digital cameras. When you just looked at the body of the machine, Pen-F is a classical beauty, in which many lines are quite model-specific like the rangefinder camera. Add a lens to it and when you flip the screen open, you will behold a professional-looking modern camera with a complex system of various buttons snapping and rotating.
Probably, Pen-F is the most rotary camera in the world. At first sight, it looks slightly confusing. In fact, however, Olympus did have some math calculations on this rotation. The rotation position is very reasonable; it is easy to manipulate. On the basis of their functionality, that is how it will differ in terms of weight and degree of rotation when rotating. For example even the direction of increase or decrease value can be adjusted by the user, while turning the effect left or right. If this is properly utilized, exposure parameters can be changed quite easily, according to a rule in the same direction that you installed yourself.
For example: In manual mode shooting, I create the first change that turning to the right will increase my aperture, the second rotation to the right will decrease speed. So in just moving my finger left to right across these two turns, I can quickly adjust both the aperture at times increasing the aperture while preserving depth of light due to the decrease in picture field.
I have used a lot of different cameras but controls on my Pen-F proved to be the most convenient. It allows the user to personalize Pen-F operation as per the requirements of different schools of photography. That is almost without defect control system Pen-F.
The body really is very compact, with a width of 124.8mm, height 72.1mm, and depth of 37.3mm. Predominantly, the shell of the machine is shaped from metal material, weighing in with battery and memory card with many M.Uuiko lenses less than 1kg, feeling very good. Further, Olympus has also designed an external grip, it supports the handle, both work against scratch bottom.
The highlight in this design is a black leather material, which is glued very closely on front and slightly overlap slightly, pretty much embellishing in a harmonious style in keeping with the rangefinder. It comes in two colors: black-silver and black. Unless you have some special reason not to, black-silver would be the way to go since later on when you buy more lenses, whether bright or dark it should also match the body.
According to Olympus, the Pen-F is inferior to the OM-D line in almost everything when it comes to acting performance. Such a design is Pen-F but at the expense of building strength against an Olympus waterproof finish.
To tell the truth, this Pen-F is very nice if compared to the normal design and looks so beautiful and elegant that one can say that it is indeed a jewel.
Performance that befits the name “Leica Asia”
Its image quality sets the compact body and lens system apart, leaving many photographers to dub Olympus “Leica Asia”. Any and every name should be respected; however, in the Olympus case, it is Leica, and my respect will not be shattered by the mere passage of a few hundred years of the German tradition.
Olympus people brought many micro-four-thirds sensors into the world. Although the MFT sensor size is technically smaller than APS-C and full-frame sizes, MFT image quality is “good enough” while optimizing the camera body size. So the MFT eco-lens is good and small too… all in all, the best experience for the photographer with nicely sized, compact bodies. “The reasonable size and 4:3 aspect ratio of the micro-four-thirds sensor will give you optimum image quality,” Lucas Tan, director of camera products at Olympus, noted.
The Pen-F is the latest camera from Olympus, fitted with a 20.3MP sensor that features a 5-axis electromagnetic vibration damping system. This sensor is without a low-pass filter and has an ISO range from 80 to 25,600. The image processor TruePic VII optimizes sharpness according to the optical characteristics of the M.Zuiko lens, offers high-precision antialiasing, and mitigates low-pass filtering. The processing system is also very good at reproducing colors of very tricky nature, like turquoise. It allows in-depth user control of compression as well as image treatment.
The Pen-F has an 81-point autofocus system with fast and continuous shooting at 10 frames per second. A three-inch touch screen LCD with a resolution of 1,037,000 pixels incorporates an EVF viewfinder possessing a 1.08x magnification with a 2,360,000-pixel resolution.
For stability, the Pen-F performed similarly well to the rest of the OM-D range put out by Olympus; therefore, it can be said that it is vibration resistant. I was able to shoot many pictures during the experience with very long shutter speeds (under 1/10s), but they remained sharp without the traces of ghosting or blur. The auto white balance function did extremely well in these conditions with bright yellow light, reproducing colors very accurately.
The camera is fast but isn’t really renowned for handling motion. However, the touch screen truly makes it easy for focusing, while dragging focus points on the screen as you peer through the viewfinder is also simple.
The screen brightness of the Pen-F has been hugely improved, making it easier to see and presenting less glare. Flipping the monitor toward the front for selfies is easy: the image can be reversed for a good appearance. Displays are intended for viewing with almost zero lag and with a very wide angle of view. All information shown in the viewfinder, together with that on the screen, can be configured to the user’s discretion.
Photos from the Pen-F have an incredible level of details and provide extensive ranges of contrast. Particles become relatively comfortable at high sensitivity to light and do not build spikes. Color is preserved from an ISO rating of lower than 12,800 with a defection of above 6,400. The fact that you are going to notice is that the more you increase the resolution of the photograph, the more noise it is going to have. Pen-F’s 20MP is sufficient for most situations, and when it needs a higher resolution, it has the 50M High Res Shot feature. Sadly, the RAW file data remain only 12-bit.
Ability to control unlimited
The Pen-F brings forth the very best of photographers with total and deep action on what the picture should be like in post-processing. Should you require a warm rich color, just select the ‘Keep Warm Color’ option; otherwise, deselect it for neutral colors.
This will save making adjustments for color correction by calling up a function called ‘Color Profile Control’, which will allow you to control the saturation of 12 discrete color channels enough to create an image that has your tonal style and precision for an accurate shot. Not to stop there, another feature called Highlight & Shadow Control enables you to manage over lighting in all areas just like Curves in Photoshop. It is worth stating that it is all encapsulated in a two-way sweeper located just below the shooting mode rotation to let work very fast without needing to grope around the menu.
If you don’t yet know how to adjust for yourself, take a breath; in addition to dozens of artistic effects … provided Olympus will spoil you with some color profiles. Further, Pen-F is in favor of four more “creative” modes. They are assigned four steps on a single turn located in front of the body, including: CRT, ART, COLOR, and MONO. These innovative modes are a combination of digital filters of color, light, film noise … that make up the specifics of the Pen-F camera.
Nevertheless, in highly complicated assignments where great precision is required, architectural photographers-even with the control over curvature and grading for the image dictated by the angle of view-created-can avail themselves of this feature. Pen-F’s function is referred to as Keystone Compensation, allowing you to view the correction on the monitor before pressing the shutter and saving images in uncompressed (RAW) format.
This is just the starting point; there would be more to come when controlling the Pen-F becomes almost limitless.
where can you get a Olympus Pen-F online
Olympus PEN-F (Body-Only) (Silver): Buy it now
Olympus PEN-F (Body-Only) (Black): Buy it now
Olympus PEN-F 20MP Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera w/ 40-150mm Lens Bundle includes PEN-F Digital Camera and M.Zuiko 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R Lens: Buy it now
Olympus PEN-F Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera with Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 EZ & 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 R Lenses (Black): Buy it now
Distinctive Characteristics
From its early days, Olympus has always aimed at creating something that no other company has ever created. To this day, the Olympus camera has a lot of things which others have not.
First, there are three features favoring long exposure which include “Live Composite”, “Live Bulb” and “Live Time”. In the case of Live Bulb and Live Time, it actually allows a person to see how the exposure process takes place. With the press of a shutter button from there on, you will see the several pictures flashing by every second, displayed on the screen while the sensor is still exposed. You can stop the exposure process at any time by pressing the shutter button again, and the sensor will not record the moment you press the shutter button to avoid flickering.
On the same mode, Live Composite supports the photographers of the movement of light (starscapes, light painting …) in a single press without light or bright light. Generally, in fact, photographers will press the shutter many times to get parts and then assemble them to form a complete photo at the backstage. This is very labor intensive and requires very precise calculations if you want to grab a long movement.
Next up is the “Bracketing” feature – automatic compensation. Generally speaking, in other camera manufacturers, the bracketing feature only allows metering compensation. But for Pen-F, he included focus compensation, white balance compensation, flash output compensation and multiple capture effects.
The next is the “50M High Res Shot” feature – the photography of super high resolution. Although 20 megapixels is the resolution of Pen-F’s sensor, but it can be turned on to catch a lot more pixels for a resolution of as much as 50 meg pixels or even 80 megapixels. Naturally, for that, the camera will need to be put in position. This feature comes into use during the landscape shooting or artwork capture. For this purpose, Olympus recommends the high quality M.Zuiko lens PRO and Premium for best performance. The popular M.Zuiko lens but cheap will produce much less than maximum results.
Last but not least, it’s a self-made feature in SCN capture mode that appeals to those fond of taking several shots in one. Numerous options to choose from arrangements that send messages that an image alone cannot convey. This type of picture is excellent for traveling and captures the main motif with details, material use, etc. And when they are displayed, they are sure to be the highlight in your album or lookbook.
Psychological barrier and selling price
After all these attractions, the Pen-F has a small size MFT sensor, which is, after all, a big hurdle for many handhelds. They say that the MFT sensor, when considered in terms of depth and bulk, cannot compete with APS-C and full-frame sensors. On the other hand, the selling price of the Pen-F is a real turn-off for many people. Therefore, the thought would arise of buying an APS-C and a full-frame for “safety.”
Well, that is just psychological. Some great photographers all over the world have used the Olympus OM-D cameras. There are few select manufacturers who are working with the MFT sensor. The MFT lens ecosystem is also very rich with cooperation from both Panasonic and Leica. The movie camera lenses will also fit this mount very well for the special design of the Pen-F. Using those is an inexpensive way to maintain aesthetics and performance.