Olympus plans 50 year anniversary party for diminutive Pen camera

Aw, how cute. 50 years ago, Olympus set the 35mm film camera market on its head with the remarkably small "Pen" line. These half-frame cameras were thought to be as portable as ink pens back in the day, thus earning them the name. Production ceased sometime in the 80s (that whole decade is really just a haze), but that's not stopping the prideful historians at the company from throwing a 50 year anniversary bash over in Tokyo. Starting on April 6th and running through June 30th, the golden gala will feature numerous old Pen models as well as mysterious "prototypes" that we can only hope will hit the market in the near future. So, after you wipe the tears from your eyes, care to tell us if you're going?

[Via Impress]

Olympus plans 50 year anniversary party for diminutive Pen camera

[cobyrne Posted Apr 3rd 2009 4:22AM]

Is it can be micro four thirds announcement tiem?

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 3rd 2009 8:14AM]

what?

[Bort Simpson Posted Apr 3rd 2009 5:02PM]

Nope, its for the Image Stabilization featurefor this updated model. Olympus Pen-IS

[Mitch Posted Apr 3rd 2009 4:22AM]

Wouldn't miss it for anything! Getting my plane tickets off of orbitz now!

[newone Posted Apr 3rd 2009 4:51AM]

The prototypes might be 50 year old...

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 3rd 2009 6:01AM]

This means Olympus Pen with micro 4/3s and an adapter for legacy lens? I hope so, what a great thing to reactivate 2nd hand market :)

[Plothole Posted Apr 3rd 2009 6:05AM]

If it was µ4:3 than it wouldn't be a Pen. I mean they're radically different systems. An adapter for the old lenses isn't out of the question. Though how much of a market would there be at this point?

[PSimpson Posted Apr 3rd 2009 6:41AM]

I still have my Dad's PEN EE. It's a good, solid camera, only problem is it only goes up to ASA 100. I used it a lot on vacations and in college...you get 72 shots from a 36 exposure roll. Quite a nice everyday camera, and much better than the Instamatics at the time.

[notfred Posted Apr 3rd 2009 9:11AM]

I love that camera. I have my dad's (He lent it to me for years, then finally I bought it off him) and a spare. Small, takes 76 pictures per roll.

[OriginalJosh Posted Apr 3rd 2009 10:14AM]

pen 15 club?

[Zews Posted Apr 3rd 2009 6:17PM]

I used to have that camera when I was a teenager (I'm 60 now). I loved it, because I got to take twice as many pictures on a single 35 mm film. And it was cool , because the camera was so small. Not a whole lot larger than my current Canon PowerShot. The only downside was, that you had to hold the camera vertically to take horizontal photos.

I did not have the version in the photo, I had the Pen-D, which had a built-in Selenium cell meter. http://homepage1.nifty.com/olympuspen/english/pend01e.htm

[nx2000 Posted Apr 4th 2009 1:03PM]

This is cool. The Pen cameras were awesome, Yoshihisa Maitani is the man.

[(Unverified) Posted May 3rd 2009 11:37AM]

Yet another great Olympus product (line) that was basically incompatible with anything else that Olympus abandoned.
Yay!