The Olympus PEN-F ($1,199.99, body only) exudes style. The compact mirrorless shooter features a metal build and a look that will have passersby mistaking it for a retro film camera. It has a lot to offer photographers, including a 20-megapixel Micro Four Thirds image sensor, a vari-angle touch-screen display, integrated 5-axis image stabilization, and a crisp electronic viewfinder. But there are some aspects that are lacking, notably a continuous autofocus system that struggles to lock during burst shooting, and a video system that tops out at 1080p when we are quickly moving into a 4K world. If video and action photography aren't priorities, and you love the look and feel of the PEN-F, it's a solid, though pricey, option. But it's no threat to our Editors' Choice in the premium mirrorless category, the Sony Alpha 6300 ($944.95 at Amazon) , a camera that does more for less money.
Design and Features
The PEN-F ( at Amazon) is available in a two-tone silver and black body, or in an all-black version. The body is metal, with a textured leatherette wrap covering all but the top and bottom plates, including the rear of the vari-angle LCD. The body is fairly compact, at 2.8 by 4.9 by 1.5 inches (HWD), but heavy for its size at 15.1 ounces sans lens. The build is sturdy, but not quite as resilient as another Olympus camera, the OM-D E-M5 Mark II ($899.99 at Amazon) (3.3 by 4.9 by 1.8 inches, 14.4 ounces), which is a little larger, but includes internal gaskets and seals that add protection from dust and rain, a feature that's missing from the PEN-F. There's no built-in flash, but Olympus does include a small external one in the box.
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The slim, svelte body has one quirk of note. The tripod socket is pushed forward on the baseplate, nestled into the lens mount. This won't be an issue in many cases, but I did run into a problem with using the PEN-F on a tripod that has a larger quick release plate along with an adapted Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 ASPH. ($4,495.00 at Leica) . The plate was large enough to block the Summilux's manual focus tab. This is a rather specialized case, and won't affect most users, but it is something to consider if you often leave a quick release plate attached to your camera. Even a smaller plate, like the ubiquitous Manfrotto RC2, extends far enough to make manual focus with a lens like the M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f1/.8 ($399.99 at Amazon) an awkward, uncomfortable process.
And that 17mm, along with other small prime lenses that are standouts in the Micro Four Thirds system—lenses like the M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 ($299.99 at Amazon) and M.Zuiko 12mm f/2—pair very well with the the PEN-F. You'll likely find the body to be a little too slim to comfortably use with a big lens like the M.Zuiko ED 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO ($1,299.99 at Amazon) and M.Zuiko ED 300mm f/4.0 IS PRO. You're better off with a bulkier body like the OM-D E-M1 ($1,099.00 at Amazon) if those are among your favorite lenses.
The PEN's body is rife with physical controls, but it doesn't feel overcrowded. Olympus has done a good job with dial and button placement. The faceplate houses the lens release button, a depth of field preview button, and a control wheel to switch between the PEN's various art filters and color modes. Black-and-white fans will appreciate the Mono setting. It allows you to simulate the effect of a color lens filter, adjust contrast, vignette, and grain, and save three different preferred profiles for quick access to your preferred black and white looks. It doesn't offer the resolution advantages of a niche, monochrome-only camera like the Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246) ($7,995.00 at Amazon) , but it doesn't carry the Monochrom's extreme price tag.
The Color setting allows you to take control over the PEN's color output. You can desaturate or make any particular section of the color wheel more vivid, allowing you to capture shots with muted reds and bright greens if desired. You can store up to three discrete color profiles in memory. If you prefer more extreme control, you can use the Creative (CRT) function, which allows you to give the entire frame a colored tint, or desaturate colors completely for a selective color effect in images. There's also an Art setting on the dial; it gives you access to preset, Instagram-style filters.
The power switch sits at the far left side of the top plate. It's styled like a film rewind button, further enhancing the PEN-F's vintage styling. A standard hot shoe is located at the center of the plate, with a locking Mode dial, the shutter release with an integrated control dial, the video Record button, and a dedicated EV compensation dial falling in line to its right. The shutter release has a threaded connection that works with standard mechanical release cables.
Moving to the rear, the viewfinder is located at the upper left corner. A diopter control sits directly to its right, joined by the Fn2 button, a programmable control that toggles EVF settings by default. A left/right jog controller is built into the base of the Mode dial; it's used to adjust the various color and filter settings when working in one of the sundry creative modes, and allows you to tune highlights and shadows when shooting without filters. Another control dial and an Fn1 button (Autoexposure Lock (AEL) by default) round out the controls that run along the top of the rear plate.
The remainder of the PEN's buttons sit below the rear thumb rest, to the right of the vari-angle display. There's a magnifying glass to zoom in on images during playback or to magnify the frame to aid manual focus when shooting. It's joined by four buttons that flank the corners of the rear directional pad—Menu, Info, Play, and Delete. The d-pad has ISO/White Balance, Flash, Drive Mode/Self-Timer, and Focus Area Select buttons, as well as a center OK button. OK brings up an on-screen menu that provides quick access to many camera settings.
The rear LCD is mounted on a hinge and is sensitive to touch. It features a true vari-angle design, so it swings out to the side of the body to face all the way down, forward, or up. The 3-inch display has a 3:2 aspect ratio, a little wider than the 4:3 sensor, so there will be a slight pillarbox effect when shooting stills, but this design cuts down on the amount of letterboxing you get when recording 16:9 video—a typical choice for a Micro Four Thirds camera.
The display is crisp, at 1,037k dots, and bright. The touch functionality is well utilized. It's possible to tap on an area of the frame to focus, or to focus and fire in one action, and there are some on-screen functions navigable by touch, including the OK overlay menu and the on-screen Wi-Fi button. I found the LCD to be plenty bright for outdoor use, but on extremely bright days the electronic viewfinder (EVF) is helpful.
The OLED EVF packs 2,359k dots into its small frame, making it very sharp to the eye. Its magnification is about 0.54x (in full-frame equivalent terms—Olympus measures it as 1.08x with a 50mm lens attached, which is a telephoto lens on a Micro Four Thirds camera). That's smaller than competing models measured in the same manner, including the Sony Alpha 6300 (0.7x), the Fujifilm X-T1 ($1,299.00 at Amazon) (0.77x), and the Panasonic GX8 ($1,199.99 at Amazon) (0.77x).
Wi-Fi is built-in. NFC isn't included for pairing with Android; instead, both Android and iOS users will need to connect to the Olympus Image Share app using a password or by photographing a QR code (displayed on the PEN) with your phone. The app allows you to transfer images from camera to phone and geotag photos stored on the camera.
The app also works as a remote control. It gives you full control over exposure settings, displays a live video feed, and allows you to set the focus point by tapping on your phone or tablet's screen. It's a good interface, but I had connection issues between the PEN-F and my iPhone 6 Plus ($299.00 at Verizon) . Even when the phone was right next to the camera, the interface would stutter intermittently. I moved the phone away from the PEN and found that the signal was lost when I was only about five feet away. This has never been a problem with other cameras from Olympus that use the same Wi-Fi system; it's my guess that the PEN's small body, combined with its sturdy metal build, is limiting the operating range.
The PEN doesn't have much in the way of ports. A proprietary USB connector and a micro HDMI port sit under a flap on the right side. The SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card slot is accessible via the bottom plate, in the same compartment as the battery. An external charger is included as in-camera charging is not supported.
Performance and Image Quality
The PEN-F is quick to start, focus, and fire, doing so in just 0.9-second. The focus system is quick to lock onto a target, requiring 0.06-second, and the camera can shoot at 9.6fps for 27 Raw+JPG, 39 Raw, or 50 JPG shots. You can also shoot at an incredible 20fps if you enable the camera's fully electronic shutter. You couldn't ask for much more in a focus system for a camera of this type, could you?
It turns out that you can. When shooting static subjects the PEN-F is a phenomenal performer. But when switching to burst mode and enabling continuous autofocus, some issues appear. Olympus only rates the PEN-F for 5fps shooting with C-AF and subject tracking enabled. I tried shooting in both standard C-AF and C-AF with subject tracking mode at 5fps and 10fps. I wasn't surprised to see that many of the shots in my test sequence, in which I fire the camera as I pull it straight in and out from a computer screen running a digital stopwatch counter, were out of focus at 10fps.
I was surprised to find that the hit rate was also poor at 5fps. Buried in the menu is a setting named Rls Priority C. It's set to On by default, which allows the shutter to fire if focus has not been locked in C-AF. It improves the hit rate, but not dramatically. I ran a few tests and found that the average speed drops to 4fps, and that about a third of the shots were out of focus. This is a fairly low stress test of the autofocus system, as it doesn't involve side-to-side motion or objects passing in front of and obscuring a moving target. Other mirrorless cameras, including the Panasonic GX8 (5.7fps) and the Sony Alpha 6300 (11.1fps), have no problems getting the overwhelming majority of shots in focus on the same test.
The PEN-F is the first Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera to make the jump from a 16MP to a 20MP image sensor. (Panasonic was first to market with a 20MP Micro Four Thirds body, the GX8.) I used Imatest to check the noise performance of the new sensor. When shooting JPGs at default settings, the PEN captures photos with noise under the 1.5 percent threshold through ISO 6400. There is some smudging of very fine detail at this setting, but on the whole, image quality is strong. Pushing to ISO 12800 is a bit much, and detail takes a noticeable hit. The top setting is ISO 25600, which shows even more loss of fidelity.
If you prefer images with less in-camera noise reduction, you can dial back noise reduction via the Noise Filter menu setting; it's set to Standard by default, but Off, Low, and High are available as options. You can also opt to shoot in Raw format. Raw photos don't have noise reduction applied in-camera, and retain much more data than JPGs, which gives you more flexibility when editing. I converted Raws using Adobe Lightroom CC ($9.99/Month at Adobe) with default settings enabled. Detail is strong and noise is well controlled through ISO 3200. Images shot at ISO 6400 and ISO 12800 show more detail than JPG counterparts, but also have a grainy quality. I wouldn't hesitate to shoot at ISO 12800, however. Pushing the camera to its ISO 25600 limit nets a photo that is quite grainy, to the point where it overtakes very fine details, it is much clearer than a JPG. Crops from both the PEN-F's default JPG output and the default Raw conversions are included in the slideshow that accompanies this review.
In addition to standard image capture, the PEN-F supports High Res Shot mode. It leverages the camera's image stabilization system to take a series of quick exposures, slighlty moving the sensor between each shot, to create a 50MP JPG or 80MP Raw image. High Res Shot was first introduced in the OM-D E-M5 Mark II and lives up to its promise of capturing images with remarkably more resolution than others in this class. But it's not without its drawbacks. Images take a few seconds to process, and you need to have the PEN locked down on a tripod, capturing a perfectly static subject to get the best results. If you prefer shooting handheld, or your subject is one that's in motion, High Res Shot isn't the right choice.
Video is recorded at up to 1080p60 quality in QuickTime format. The footage is crisp, clear, and steady. In-body stabilization ensures that motion is smooth, even when working with a non-native lens. When working with an autofocus lens, the PEN does a solid job reacting to changes in the scene, and makes smooth (rather than sudden) changes to bring shots into focus. Audio is a concern; the internal stereo mic does a fine job picking up voices of those close to the camera, but it's also prone to capturing background noise, and in the case of the 17mm f/1.8 with which I tested the camera, it picked up the sound of the focus motor making adjustments. There's no external mic port available. If you're serious about video, consider a model like the Sony Alpha 6300 or the Panasonic GX8; both support external audio input and record at 4K quality.
Conclusions
The Olympus PEN-F wins big points for its style, build, handling, and image quality. Photos are crisp, even at higher ISO sensitivity, in-body stabilization lets you shoot blur-free images at longer shutter speeds and steadies handheld video, and if you're a fan of filters and film looks, the PEN-F gives you ample options from which to choose. When you combine that with a useful touch-screen LCD and an OLED eye-level viewfinder, its sounds like you've got a phenomenal camera on your hands.
But the PEN-F doesn't quite meet its full potential. While its autofocus system is quick and accurate with static targets, it falters when it comes to tracking moving subjects. I found the Wi-Fi connection to be a bit weak when compared with other cameras in this class, even those from Olympus, which led to errors when trying to use a phone as a remote control. And there are shortcomings on the specification level—other cameras in this price range, including the Panasonic GX8 and our Editors' Choice Sony Alpha 6300, sport weather-resistant designs and 4K video recording, both of which the PEN lacks.
Still, despite not being as versatile as some other models, the PEN-F will appeal to photographers who couldn't give a hoot about 4K capture and don't shoot fast-moving sports action. When paired with a compact prime lens it's a discrete, attractive camera that's a fine choice for street photography, family photos, and photographers who prefer to travel light or want toned, stylized images right out of the camera rather than from a Raw processor. If that's you, the PEN-F may very well be worth the high price of admission. I just wish that its performance and feature set lived up to its style across the board.
The Olympus PEN-F is a svelte mirrorless camera with a retro chic design that delivers superb image quality, but could do better in terms of video capture and subject tracking.
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