Olympus PEN-F Hands-On Field Test

The OMD E-M5 revitalized Olympus' mirrorless camera line with it's beautiful, classic styling, but the Pen series has failed to cause much excitement recently. Now, the new Pen-F camera bring gorgeous retro styling and a new sensor to the Olympus lineup. Is this the camera Chris has been waiting for?

Shot and Edited by Jordan Drake
Shot on the Sony FS5

[san-chil]

A beautiful product that and possibly the perfect street camera that Olympus decided to shelve. Some companies just hate the potential …

[nordattack]

Yep, the Pen F is truly beautiful.
As to the problems you mentioned:
-The touch screen issue is not a problem with me since I hate touch screen on a camera and turn it off on any camera I use that has it.
-I don't care about video.
-Never use CAF for any reason.
-Only care about the camera as a still camera with SAF.

I wish you had demo'd the mono mode and showed how you can configure the mono to your personal taste, setting the grain level, contrast, levels. color filter etc.
This new mono mode is not the old grainy B&W art filter that was on the E-M5, it is a totally new B&W mode with lots of user control.

[dwitede]

regarding C-AF: from DPReview, from the review of the OMD M5 II, which I assume is similar to the Pen f:-- The camera won't continuous autofocus when set to maximum (10fps) shooting speed, so you have to use Continuous L.-- The default "release priority" setting for C-AF mode results in a high number of missed shots. Disengaging this setting will greatly improve the camera's hit rate.

[johnclifford]

This was a surprisingly good review. I think the C-AF issue with video has been fixed with the latest body firmware update. Love my new PEN-F for what it is... dSLR image quality, great lenses, compact size.

[giogargiuloD]

I was really looking forward to this, it's a bummer it has so many downsides, because it looks gorgeous and it delivers some nice pictures.

It will be for the next one Olympus!

[justAfisherman]

"in fact this big lens is hiding right here in between my " that sounds like a great pick up line. Thanks Chris.

[SeanBires]

re: touchscreen menus... The way the "super control panel" is supposed to be used is you select the parameter with touch, and change it with the rear dial; at least that's how it is on the OM-Ds. Love the review though.

[supernova]

that lens produces gorgeous image. thanks guys you are doing an amazing job, I really think no one out there is doing what you doing. hats off.

[svendura]

I liked your review a lot. Very comprehensive, very understandable and you were the first editor, who dared to mention some critics. I really loved that. You gave me a second opinion to all those praising reviews. Thanks for that. Thumbs up and abo.

[paristo]

Touchscreen for menus is disabled for the reason. You use front and rear dials to move around and change settings. So your right hand us always on the front and rear dial, ready to press shutter. And then you use touchscreen in SCP with left hand quickly choose the setting to adjust without moving selector around with dials.

Same thing example with color creator and those, front and rear dials adjust all around without requirement to use Dpad or OK at all (shutter button works as OK).
So you get quickly to modes with new front mode dial or the new shadow/highlights switch and then you do adjustments with front/rear dials and hit shutter to accept. All with a single hand, without taking camera off your eye or loosing a grip.

It works perfectly.

And then there is this video side. You can't rotate dials easily while recording as you easily move camera around or cause noise. Why touchscreen is better as finger taps doesn't generate noise or move camera that IBIS can't compensate.

[peterjohn]

@ 10:00 - I want to know how it does on the EM1 with the on sensor phase detection. Please include that in your lens review if you do one. THX

[Endogamy]

Curve adjustment on camera. Well done Olympus!

[wickie]

I´m using it for almost 3 years: nice look, lightweight, small, creative - a little bit slow in focussing. It´s good enough, nice photolook, interesting bracketin-ART-functions: not he best camera in technic - but the  I own but th mot beauiful one - sympathic to use...you dont`have to use RAW - and that´s fine because it makes evraythin easy and simple; you have enough possibilities to handle with creative filters...gerat for beginners who don`t want to make RAW development. GREAT! LIFEQUALITY - not to spend hours and hours in front of the Computer...

[MichaelSmith-yyfw]

Thanks for the critical look at this camera. I was almost sold on it but now I’m going to take a far more careful look. Calling it a jpg users camera really got my attention. Nice size and it is a pretty thing.

[Impostertot]

Holy crap! It's February right, where the heck is your snow Calgary !?!

[SimonPhillipsPhoto]

Funny you mention the crappy auto focus with the 300 as I was using that combo on a Olympus walk a week ago and I was getting the same results it just wouldn't focus properly with things in the distance close up it was fine.

[hightravel]

I do like the look of Pen-F and dials. Have they fix focusing issue?

[RobynASDxxx]

7:02 careful now... phew that was close lol nice moves =)

btw, does the snow ever thaw in canada? looks a stunning place, will visit one day. Camera looks awesome too, not a fan of MFT but at least the pen has some charm about it despite its obvious flaws.
From a fuji x user =)

[ristovainio]

I somewhat disagree on the front jpeg dial being of low value. I personally love to test my visual ideas real time, see the change whether it's the tone curve, colour response alteration or black and white looks. The same goes with Fuji film simulations, they provide me an inspiration on location and saving RAW too gives me complete freedom to tweak and fine tune everything to my heart's content afterwards. That's best of both worlds to me, especially if post processing software supports importing the jpeg treatment.

[seannicolaysen]

Such a great-looking camera. A pity the continuous AF system isn't up to the task of doing basic action photography...