Long story short – I’d no intention of buying a half-frame camera. Or another film camera. But in 2023 I was in a small photo store in Chiang Mai, Thailand with my daughter who was leaving a few rolls of colour film in for developing and scanning – and they sold CLA’d film cameras. So I bought one. It was a nice day on a good trip. It was a fully working Olympus Pen EE2 half frame 35mm camera – for about £40. I’m only human.

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It’s lovely. It has a Zuiko 28mm / f3.5 lens – fixed focus, and a selenium cell for metering.

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You set the film speed, wind on (thumbwheel), compose in the portrait oriented viewfinder and press. That’s it. There’s 2 shutter speeds – 1/40 and 1/200 but in auto mode you’ll not know. Like the Trip, if there’s insufficient light, a wee red flag shows in the viewfinder and the shutter won’t fire.

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There’s no built-in flash like later Pen models but if you use a manual flash, you can set the aperture with the orange scale markings to suit the flash settings. The shutter fires in this mode at 1/40 which also will give you a bit of manual control – if you feel like it.

With 72 shots from a 35mm film, it can take a while to complete a roll – which isn’t a bad thing if you use a half-frame camera as a pocket snappy and you want to look back on what you were shooting.

The first roll was Aeronega 100, respooled Kodak Aerocolor IV bought out in Thailand.

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Then it went to London

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Then it went to Spain – in better light.

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A few observations. The fixed focus is definitely not close focus.

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There was – I think – a winding error and a wee multiple exposure.

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And there is scope – particularly if using a 35mm enlarger to get some diptychs (accidental on this first roll, I may start thinking about this on the next black and white roll).

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In 2024 half frame has become something of a thing with the launch of the Pentax 17 as well as numerous Agfa and Kodak branded toy cameras. The Pen EE2 however is glorious – a design classic. Despite the small image, the Zuiko lens is nice and sharp. And it’s a genuine point and shoot – not even zone focus. I’ll continue to use it as a random snappy camera and see if I can get something interesting in the darkroom with a half-frame or diptych print. Not sure I’d spend 500 quid on the Pentax though.

Half frame club is a great resource for half-frame cameras.

The camera was bought in Negative Film Lab, Chiang Mai. The film developed by Analogue Wonderland.