The Olympus Pen was designed to be a low cost, easy to use, highly portable camera for mass market sales. It was manufactured by the Olympus Corporation in Japan with the first version of the Pen made in 1959. The Pen used simple, reliable mechanical components to keep the cost per unit low and used commonly available 35mm film in a half-frame format. The Pen was considered one of the most compact cameras at the time, with its name a marketing reference to how it is as portable as the writing utensil. The E series also featured a Selenium light meter surrounding the lens that automatically adjusted the shutter speed based on ambient light, making it a true point-and-shoot camera. [1] The compact size, ease of use, and high reliability also endeared the Olympus Pen to military personnel in Vietnam who used it as a personal camera [2][3] and for official duty on reconnaissance teams such as the US Army Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRP) [4] and MAC V SOG Recon Teams. SOG seemed to favor the EE-2 version with the hot shoe for a flash mounted to the top of the camera [5], though a PEN without the hot shoe is shown at [6].
The Pen camera shown on this page is the EE-S (EL) model, with “EL” meaning “Easy Loading” due to the modified take-up spool for the 35mm film. The Olympus Pen EE-S EL’s were made between 1966 – 1968, when it was superseded by the EES-2. [1]
Parts Diagram:
Manual is available at: https://www.cameramanuals.org/olympus_pdf/olympus_pen_ee_el.pdf (Archive available at https://kommandopost.com/files/olympus_pen_ee_el.pdf)
Top:
Bottom:
Sides:
Lanyard:
Lanyard is made of vinyl material.
Rewind Lever:
Inside:
The back panel slides out when the camera’s back lock is rotated.
The black rectangle in the middle is the film pressure plate. It is held in place with spring steel retaining clips that can be removed with careful sliding. The pressure plate contains the manufacturing date [7], in this case January 1967.
