Olympus PEN-F

HANDS-ON – THERE'S MORE TO THIS CAMERA THAN ITS LOOKS

The 'rangefinder' revival is hardly a new trend, but Olympus has led the way from day one and the PEN-F is its latest effort. Coming in at around £1,000 body only, it's going up against the likes of the Panasonic Lumix GX8 and the Fujifilm X-Pro2. It's also the first PEN camera to feature an viewfinder, a much requested feature up to now. That's a good start.
According to Olympus, the PEN-F will be the envy of 'photo hipsters' – I can't quite tell if that's ironic or not, but it's there all the same. It's probably true, but it does the PEN-F a disservice. Yes, this is stunning camera – especially in silver – but it's more than a fancy pants camera for posers. Much more.
Sticking with the design, though, the PEN-F is a remarkably small camera. It only weighs 427g including the battery and it's 37.3mm thick. It's stylish, but discreet, which makes a nice contrast to rather large Lumix GX8.
It's absolutely heaving with direct controls, too. There's exposure compensation, the mode dial (with lock), two multifunction dials (one on the top, another at the rear) and one further dial at the front.
 That final one is the Creative Dial and it's one of the PEN-F's defining features. It lets you quickly switch between colour and creative filters, including a variety of monochrome mode features and customisable colour profiles.
All the dials on the PEN-F feel incredibly sturdy and nicely defined. The front-mounted Creative Dial is stiff enough that you can rest your finger on it without jogging it, but not so tough that it's hard to use.

 On the technical side, there's a new 20-megapixel Live MOS sensor and you still get the much lauded 5-axis image stabilisation system. True to the street photography focus, there's no low-pass filter, which combined with the new sensor allows for longer exposure times at low ISO and sharper images.
Finally, there's the EVF. A 2.36-million dot OLED with 0.62x magnification. I didn't have long to try it out, but I can't see there being many problems here. You can use the touchscreen to select your focus point while using the EVF as well, though some might find this annoying if their nose touches the screen accidentally.

OPENING IMPRESSIONS

All told this is a hugely impressive camera. There's a tactile quality that makes you want to explore, and I found the general layout and controls more to my liking than past Olympus efforts.
I sense choosing a new mirrorless camera is about to get even harder.

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