Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Olympus Pen F

Olympus · Pen F mount · 18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical with the camera held normally · 1963

Also known as: Olympus Pen-F · Olympus Pen FT · Olympus Pen-FT · Olympus Pen FV · Olympus Pen-FV · オリンパス ペンF · オリンパス ペンFT

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Pen F (1963–66) Pen F 1963–1966 — About 190,000 (camera-wiki)
Pen FT (1966–72) Pen F 1966–1972 — About 275,000 (camera-wiki)
Pen FV (1967–70) Pen F 1967–1970 — About 45,000 (camera-wiki) — the least common
  1. The production figures — 190,000, 275,000 and 45,000 — are camera-wiki's and are repeated everywhere without a primary source; Olympus has not published them. They are consistent with the FV being the scarce one.
  2. This is the one half-frame with a lens mount, and its lenses are a system of their own. They are not in the catalog yet; when they are, this page will link to them.
  3. The name was reused. Olympus's 2016 digital PEN-F is a Micro Four Thirds camera that shares nothing but the letters, and it fills any marketplace search for 'Pen F' — which is what the exclusion list on this page is for.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • No prism hump: the mirror swings sideways and a porro prism carries the image to an eyepiece at the corner, so the top plate is flat
  • A rotary titanium disc for a focal-plane shutter, 1 s to 1/500 and B, with flash sync at every speed
  • The Pen F bayonet, a mount shared with nothing else; Zuiko lenses from 20mm to an 800mm mirror, with the 38mm f/1.8 the standard

Pen F (1963–66):

  • A large gothic F engraved in gold on the front plate, right of the lens, where later models carry the self-timer lever
  • Double-stroke advance — two throws per frame, to wind the stiff rotary-shutter spring
  • No meter; a clip-on meter mounts on the shutter-speed dial by a two-pronged bayonet

Pen FT (1966–72):

  • Built-in TTL meter, uncoupled, reading in numbers that the lenses' secondary scales repeat; the finder is dimmer for the light it borrows
  • Single-stroke advance with a longer lever, and a self-timer whose lever replaces the gothic F
  • Chrome or black

Pen FV (1967–70):

  • The FT without its meter: single-stroke lever and self-timer, the bright F finder back

Specifications

Format
18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical with the camera held normally · 72 exposures
Finder
Porro-prism reflex finder fed by a side-swinging mirror; no meter display on the F, an uncoupled TTL number readout on the FT · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Rotary titanium focal-plane shutter · 1 s – 1/500 and B; electronic flash synchronises at every speed · self-timer
Film advance
Lever: double-stroke on the F, single-stroke on the FT and FV
Meter
None on the F and FV (a clip-on meter for the F); uncoupled TTL CdS on the FT
Designed by
Maitani Yoshihisa (米谷美久) — designer; the sideways mirror and rotary shutter are his patents
Weight
441 g
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

History

Four years after the Pen, Maitani made the format into a system. The Pen F of 1963 is a single-lens reflex with a half-frame gate, and almost every part of it is unlike an ordinary SLR: the mirror swings sideways instead of up, a porro prism carries the image to an eyepiece at the corner so the top plate is flat, and the shutter is a rotating titanium disc that gives 1 second to 1/500 and synchronises with flash at every one of them. The lens mount is its own bayonet, and Olympus filled it with Zuikos from a 20mm to an 800mm mirror lens, the 38mm f/1.8 as the standard.

Three models. The original F, with a gold gothic F on the front and a double-stroke advance to wind the stiff shutter spring, ran to 1966 and about 190,000 cameras. The FT of 1966 put an uncoupled TTL meter behind the mirror — the finder pays for it in brightness — and gave the body a single-stroke lever and a self-timer in place of the gothic letter; about 275,000 were made, in chrome and black. The FV of 1967 is the FT without its meter and the rarest of the three at about 45,000. Those figures are camera-wiki’s, repeated everywhere and confirmed by Olympus nowhere.

Mike Eckman calls it one of the most important cameras of the century; Matt Osborne bought one because it was cheap and found the negatives rivalled full frame. Its lenses are a system in their own right and are not yet in this catalog. The name was reused in 2016 for a digital camera that shares nothing with it but the letters.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Olympus Pen F
Olympus Pen F with the F.Zuiko 38mm f/1.8 and the gothic F — Hiyotada, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Olympus Pen F
Pen FT — the self-timer lever where the F carries its gothic letter — [[Benutzer:Wolf4max|Wolfgang Thanner]] (Diskussion). Wolf4max at German Wikiped, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $220 across 44 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $190–$250). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: down 2% from $230.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$220$190–$25044
2026-09-06$230$200–$25043

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 107 more listings

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Olympus Pen · Olympus Pen EE · Yashica Samurai · Nikon FM2 Half Frame

Sources (4)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.