Buy. Sell. Regret. Repeat. The Olympus Pen F
I keep coming back to this camera. Buying, selling, regretting, buying once again. And I still can't quite figure out why.
When I don't own it, I miss it. But something has always annoyed me enough that I've sold it. Twice, now. This time around, I took it with me to Cape Town for two weeks and made a real effort to properly investigate the question I keep avoiding: why does this camera have such a hold on me, and is it worth keeping for good?
The Olympus Pen F is 10 years old this year. And it's still one of the most remarkable cameras ever made.
How the Pen F feels
The Pen F is, clearly, a camera that's meant to be looked at. But more than that, it's meant to be felt.
Everything that could have been a menu item is a physical thing instead. There’s a highlights and shadows rocker on the back. The photo profile dial on the front. The on/off switch. Even the way the different surfaces meet… There are so many different textures on this tiny body that it’s a tactile delight every time you pick it up.
One of my favourite facts about the Pen F: there is not a single visible screw on the entire camera. Everything is hidden. Everything is seamless. I didn't realise how rare that was until I picked up every other camera I owned and had a look. It is genuinely a feat of engineering!
I showed the Pen F to some friends while I was out in Cape Town and asked them how old they thought it was. One person guessed fifteen years old. Another thought it was a film camera. Another thought it was super modern.
The Pen F is ten years old, but it’s just timeless: a perfect (and slightly confusing) blend of old-school analogue photography and genuinely modern digital features.
Out in the real world
One of my favourite moments with the Pen F on this trip was wearing it to my good friend Josh Cameron’s wedding. I was a guest, not the photographer, so the last thing I wanted to do was be an "Uncle Bob" — lurking about and getting in the way of the actual photographer. So I sat in my seat, put the camera into silent mode, and just... quietly took some candid shots throughout the day.
Josh didn't even realise I'd taken them. It was a lovely little surprise for him afterwards. And that's the magic of the Pen F: it's stylish enough that it doesn't look out of place at a wedding, it's small enough that you're not paparazzi-ing everyone, and the electronic shutter option means you can be completely invisible. Not many cameras tick all three of those boxes at once.
I came away with some genuinely lovely, quiet, candid images that I don't think I'd have captured with a bigger, noisier camera.
For photo walks, street photography, and just documenting everyday life, it's a delight. The depth of field from the micro four thirds sensor is perfect for the kind of photography I tend to shoot on trips like this. There's always just enough context in the background, and the subject pops beautifully.
Why I've sold it before (and why I was wrong)
So, why did I sell this camera? Twice?!
The first time, I was at a stage in my life — and more importantly, my budget — where I needed a camera that could do everything. And the Pen F really isn't that camera. The video features are, frankly, atrocious. The menus are deep, convoluted, and occasionally maddening (I even had to download the manual PDF in Cape Town just to find the timelapse settings, which is not something I'm proud of, given I’ve used this camera on and off for ten blummin’ years!). The autofocus is not anything to write home about.
I sold it, got the GH5, and the rest is history.
But I think I missed the point of the Olympus Pen F entirely. Some cameras are designed to do everything. And some are designed to do ONE thing very, very well. The Pen F falls firmly into that second category, and it was never pretending otherwise.
That "one thing" is everyday photography. Friends, family, holidays, street photography, landscapes, portraits. A methodical, hands-on, physical experience where you're dialling in your settings deliberately, and actually thinking about what you're shooting. In a world where everything happens at 40 frames per second, there's something genuinely refreshing about that in my opinion.
If you're a vlogger or a wildlife shooter, the Pen F is not your camera. But if you're the right kind of photographer — and you go into it with clear eyes about what it is and what it isn't — it can be a genuinely magical experience.
Compared to the OM System OM-3…
The obvious comparison for a lot of people is the OM System OM-3, which I think of as the Pen F's spiritual successor, at least aesthetically.
They share some design DNA. But in a lot of ways, the OM-3 is the exact opposite of the Pen F. The OM-3 can do just about everything you throw at it. It's weather sealed. It's great for wildlife. It's great for video. It's a proper everyday carry that you can take to a waterfall, a safari, a wedding, or a bird hide and it'll perform brilliantly at all of them. But it is that bit bigger. And quite a bit more expensive.
And ya know what? You can see about 8 screws on the thing haha. And it is a chonky boy.
For a trip like Cape Town, where it was all people, candid moments, portraits, street scenes, and real life, the Pen F was the right tool. It felt like the perfect and most satisfying camera for the job.
If you're looking to buy a Pen F, I'd always recommend checking MPB first — MPB UK | MPB US | MPB EU. — The used market on these tends to trend upwards (they're only getting more popular, not less), so if you see one at a good price, don't sit on it too long!
The Verdict…
I'd honestly love to have seen the alternate timeline where Olympus (and later OM System) realised the gold dust they had with the Olympus Pen F, and just kept going with it. What would a Pen F Mk II look like today? A Mk III? Up there with the Ricoh GR and the Fujifilm X100 series as one of the most iconic compact cameras money can buy, I'd imagine. The fact that they haven't updated it is, I think, genuinely one of the greatest missed opportunities in the camera world today.
But even after a decade, the original is still stunning. One of the very best photo-centric cameras ever made. There's very little else like it — even now.
Call me sentimental. Call me eternally optimistic. But I'm still holding out hope that OM System sees the money they're leaving on the table here and revives the Pen F line one day soon.
But either way, I'm not selling this one again. That's a promise.