Olympus has just announced its new PEN-F mirrorless camera, featuring a newly-developed 20MP Micro Four Thirds Live MOS sensor, a built-in OLED electronic viewfinder and a 5-axis voice coil motor image stabilization system.
The PEN-F is styled after the original PEN F from 1964, which used a half frame 18 x 24mm format on a 135 film roll and allowed the camera to be more compact with smaller system lenses. The resemblance of the new and old is striking. The new PEN-F features magnesium top and front body covers, along with aluminum dials and lower body. You will find a both a mode dial and an exposure compensation dial on top of the camera.
The rear of the camera features an articulating LCD and a 2.36 million-dot OLED viewfinder. A Simulated OVF (S-OVF) Mode expands the dynamic range and provides an image similar to what would be seen with the naked eye. Focus peaking is also available for dialing in your manual focus.
Olympus hails the PEN-F as having the shortest shutter lag of any other mirrorless camera, clocking in at 0.044 seconds. You get a 1/8000s max shutter speed with the PEN-F’s mechanical shutter. It also has a silent mode and an anti-shock mode to prevent shutter shake.
Still image frame rates capture up to 10fps with the mechanical shutter or 5fps with continuous AF. It can also capture up to 20fps when in Silent Mode. It shoots 1080/60p video as well and has a max sensitivity of ISO 25,600.
The new PEN-F advances with a High Res Shot Mode that captures 50MP images that can even use RAW image capture with Olympus Viewer 3 ver. 2.0 editing software. The camera’s front Creative Dial gives you access to its Monochrome Profile Control, Color Profile Control, Art Filters and Color Creator.
The 4K Time Lapse Movie feature allows the camera to capture up to 999 images automatically at intervals ranging from one image every second to one image every 24 hours. The images are then combined in-camera to create a 4K video.
An optional metal grip (ECG-4) for $130 is available for PEN-F, along with other premium leather accessories, including a $120 shoulder strap (CSS-S120L PR), a $150 wrapping cloth (CS-48 PR), a $490 camera bag (CBG-11 PR) and a $53 body jacket (CS-47B).
The Olympus PEN-F will be available in early March for $1199.99. You can order it here at B&H Photo.