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

Olympus Pen

Olympus · Fixed lens · 18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical frame with the camera held normally · 1959

Also known as: Olympus Pen S · Olympus Pen original · オリンパス ペン · オリンパス ペンS

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Pen (1959) Half-frame 1959 — No figure published for the model; 17 million half-frame Pens of all types were sold by the early 1980s (camera-wiki, citing Olympus)
Pen S (1960) Half-frame 1960 — No figure published
  1. The Pen and the Pen S are one page: the same body, the same shutter family and the same 28mm f/3.5 option, with the S adding speeds and a faster lens as an upgrade Olympus sold alongside the original. The f/2.8 Pen S is not a different camera in the way the Pen D, with its 32mm f/1.9 and meter, is.
  2. Olympus's own history gives the 6,000-yen target and the October 1959 launch; the 17 million figure is for every half-frame Pen from 1959 to the early 1980s and no per-model split has ever been published.
  3. The first cameras were not made by Olympus. Sanko-Shoji built them under contract, and those bodies, and the 'Pen Original' assembled by Olympus from Sanko-Shoji parts, have one strap lug where every later Pen has two — the only external tell of the first year.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A body the size of a cigarette packet with the lens dead centre and the finder above it — the shape every half-frame that followed borrowed
  • Thumbwheel advance on the back, frame counter to 72
  • No meter window: the Pen E series has a selenium ring around the lens, the D has a meter cell on the front plate; the Pen and Pen S have neither

Pen (1959):

  • D.Zuiko 28mm f/3.5, four elements in three groups, Tessar-derived
  • Copal leaf shutter with 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/200 and B — the four-speed dial is the quickest way to tell a Pen from a Pen S
  • The earliest bodies were built for Olympus by the sub-contractor Sanko-Shoji and carry a single strap lug; Olympus took production in-house within a year

Pen S (1960):

  • Shutter of 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250 and B — seven settings against the Pen's four
  • Sold with either the 30mm f/2.8 D.Zuiko or the 28mm f/3.5; the f/2.8 is the one collectors mean by 'Pen S'

Specifications

Format
18×24 mm on 35mm film, vertical frame with the camera held normally · 72 exposures
Finder
Direct-vision optical finder with a bright frame, 0.5× (ImagingPixel); no focusing aid · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Copal leaf, between the lens · 1/25–1/200 and B on the Pen; 1/8–1/250 and B on the Pen S
Film advance
Thumbwheel on the back
Back
Removable, lifts off entirely
Meter
None. Exposure is set by hand from the scale on the lens.
Designed by
Maitani Yoshihisa (米谷美久) — designer of the Pen and of the whole series that followed
Country
Japan

Where sources disagree

Pen S lens
  • 30mm f/2.8 D.Zuiko (most accounts, and the lens reviewers write about)
  • 28mm f/3.5 — a Pen S so fitted existed alongside it (camera-wiki, Wikipedia)

Better supported: Both existed

Not a disagreement about the camera but about what 'Pen S' names. Olympus sold the S with either lens; the faster one is the one the name is remembered for.

What reviewers say

History

The Pen exists because of a number. Olympus gave Maitani Yoshihisa a target of 6,000 yen for a camera an ordinary person could buy, and the only way he found to hit it without a toy lens was to expose half a frame of 35mm film: 18 by 24 millimetres, seventy-two pictures from a cassette of thirty-six, in a body the size of a cigarette packet. It went on sale in October 1959 and Olympus could not build them fast enough — the first year’s cameras were made by a sub-contractor, Sanko-Shoji, and carry a single strap lug to prove it.

The camera itself is as plain as its price. A D.Zuiko 28mm f/3.5, four elements in the Tessar pattern, a Copal shutter with four speeds from 1/25 to 1/200, a scale on the lens for focusing and nothing at all for exposure: no meter, no rangefinder, no automation. The Pen S of 1960 kept the body and gave it seven speeds from 1/8 to 1/250 and, in the version people remember, a 30mm f/2.8. Both sold beside each other, and this page treats them as one camera with an upgrade, which is how Olympus sold them.

What followed was a family. The Pen EE of 1961 put a selenium ring around the lens and took every decision away from the photographer; the Pen D of 1962 went the other way with an f/1.9 and a meter; the Pen W of 1964 fitted a 25mm; the Pen F of 1963 made the format into a system SLR. Seventeen million half-frame Pens were sold before the line ended in the early 1980s, and no one has ever published how many of them were the plain Pen that started it.

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.

Example photos

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Olympus Pen? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $110 across 7 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $75–$120). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $110.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$110$75–$1207
2026-09-06$110$75–$1207

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

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

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

Related: Canon Demi · Olympus Pen D · Olympus Pen EE · Olympus Pen F · Olympus Pen W · Pentax 17

Sources (5)

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.