Olympus Pen EES-2
In the 1960s and 70s, Olympus made some truly excellent compact 35mm cameras for the average consumer. Their entire series of Pen half-frame cameras were widely popular and continue to be enjoyed by photographers, half a century later.
The Olympus Pen EES-2 was introduced in 1968, as an update to the previous Pen EES. It also mirrored the 'full frame" Olympus Trip 35 camera. The Pen EES-2 made only mild improvements upon the well rounded Pen EES, such as expanding the zone focus to four zones, from the previous three, and making it easier to access and adjust. The EES-2 also improved how the auto exposure system is handled and added a hot shoe atop the camera.
All the strengths of the original EES were kept, namely, the excellent Zuiko 30mm f/2.8 lens, the simple control layout, and the compact size. Likewise, the EES-2 also relies on a selenium cell light meter, located around the lens of the camera. The convenience of this type of metering is that it makes the camera completely independent of batteries. It also allows the Pen EES-2 to operate in a sort of shutter priority mode where the camera uses a fixed 1/200th shutter speed and sets a variable aperture, based on readings by the light meter. If the camera cannot choose a wide enough aperture in lower light, a red flag pops up in the viewfinder and the shutter will not fire, thereby preventing severely under exposed images. The camera can also be shifted to a full manual mode where the shutter speed is fixed at 1/40th of a second and apertures can be chosen between f/2.8 to f/22. This is all to say that, while the Pen EES-2 is meant to be used in a simplified, straight-forward manner that requires little input from the photographer, it can also work in a more manual mode with input directly from the user. As far as compact half-frame cameras go, the Pen EES-2 is a well-rounded, middle-of-the-road model that has a lot to offer and is a great way to break into the half-frame genre.
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