The Olympus PEN-F will be ten years old in February 2026, yet it remains a highly desirable camera to this day despite its decade old tech. I still love and use mine...

This is a beautiful, rangefinder form camera that combines style and capability. It has that look of a vintage film camera but is full of modern digital features such as a 20mp C-MOS sensor and in body 5-axis IBIS stabilisation. It also comes with a quality magnesium alloy build. It was the first to have the innovative creative dial on the front.

To the rear is a fully articulated touchscreen and a set of customisable buttons plus the all important EV viewfinder beloved of stills photographers such as myself who are aficionados of classic camera designs. 

As for image quality? Well, this camera is excellent, producing lovely images with great colours. Just don't try to push it beyond 1600 ISO as its tech is from a previous generation. Mind you the excellent IBIS in the camera lets me hand hold at much lower shutter speeds than usual to compensate for this.

Images from this camera can be given a filmic vibe by judicious use of the creative dial on its front and Olympus encouraged photographers to explore its use to create and store particular 'looks'.

It is interesting how much detail there is to be found in images from a 20mp CMOS sensor from ten years ago. Indeed back then you could use the computational Hi-Res-Shot feature of the camera to create a 50mp image which was made by pixel shifting and combining the resulting multiple images, which had the added benefit of reducing noise and increasing dynamic range in the final image. This feature continues in OM System camera to this day and many of its rivals have copied it.

Being a very compact camera, the PEN-F is very suited to the smaller primes like the M.Zuiko 12mm f2, 17mm f1.8, 25mm f1.8 and 45mm f1.8 plus compact zooms like the 12-45mm f4 Pro and the 14-150mm f4-5.6. Indeed the two middle picture here were made on the 14-150mm super zoom, the bottom one on the 12mm prime, though the very top one was made with the 40-150mm f4 Pro. The latter is a really nice lens but a little on the large side for this smaller sized body. But it works perfectly well.

For a good few years my Olympus PEN-F was my primary digital camera until I came to my OM-3 via my OM-5. These days the OM-3 is my go to camera for the majority of my photo adventures but I still use my OM-5 (I have the Mk II version these days) and my good old PEN-F when the mood takes me. However, what I would really, really like above all else is a PEN-F II with all of OM System's latest tech in it. Dreaming...

Finally I have to say my PEN-F is a thing of beauty, a thing that is just right to hold and bring to your eye and use, a thing that feels and looks like a real camera. Long discontinued, no wonder it has become a cult classic with a price to match in the used market if you want one in decent condition with a low shutter count.