Remembering half-frame : the Olympus EE series

In recent years Olympus have revived the name “PEN” for their mirrorless four-thirds digital cameras, but from 1955-1981 the name referred to a series of half-frame 35mm camera. Half-frame means that two images are taken in the space normally used for one 35mm image; the resulting negatives were 18mm wide * 24mm high and all the half-frame cameras I’ve seen provided a vertical format image.

Two of these cameras have come through my hands before being sold on; an EE2 which took the colour images below and an EE3 which was used for the black and white film. They were very basic cameras, with a selenium cell meter around the lens, programmed auto exposure, and fixed focus.

I can’t find an image of my PEN cameras before I sold them, so here’s one from Wikipedia:

Having twice the number of images on a roll of film can be seen as a bonus or drawback; a bonus if you want to get the most return on the money you spend on film purchase and processing, and a drawback if, like me, it takes you a long time to work through a 24 or 36 exposure film, never mind 48 or 72 images. I think that the roll of colour film took from 2010 to 2012 to finish ! Of course, the smaller negative size does place severe constraints on image quality and most of the images below have had a fair bit of processing in Lightroom to get them to this point.

Taken in Stockton in 2012; demolition was under way so these houses must be gone now.

Stockton timber, Kodak ColorPlus 200 film

Ouseburn, Kodak ColorPlus 200 film

Sunderland Glass Centre, Kodak ColorPlus 200 film

Newcastle upon Tyne, Kodak ColorPlus 200 film

Outside Ratagan Youth Hostel, Scotland Kodak ColorPlus 200 film

Eilean Donan castle Kodak ColorPlus 200 film

Glen Shiel, Kodak ColorPlus 200 film

2010, Olympus PEN-EE, Kodak 200, v700, Tetenal009-3

Beware … Rollei RPX100 film dev’d in Rodinal

Kirkheaton, Northumberland, Rollei RPX100 film dev’d in Rodinal