This Camera Lets You Take Double the Number of Pictures

The beauty of digital photography is that once you have paid for the camera and storage, you can take as many images as you want at essentially no additional cost. Of course, on the other hand, when it comes to film photography, every press of the shutter incurs an additional cost. So, a film camera that promises to double the number of images you can take with every roll sounds quite intriguing. This neat video will show you one such camera.

Coming to you from Willem Verbeeck, this great video takes a look at the Olympus Pen F. First introduced in 1963, the Pen F is what's known as a "half-frame camera," meaning it takes a standard 35mm frame and divides it vertically down the middle, turning a 36x24mm frame into two 18x24mm portrait frames (quite close to a modern APS-C sensor). Doing so also changes the aspect ratio from 3:2 to 4:3. Doing this turns a 36-exposure roll of film into 72-exposures, doubling the mileage of the roll. Of course, there are drawbacks to this, such as the reduced image quality that comes from a smaller frame, but it is still quite the clever implementation and a lot of fun to shoot with. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Verbeeck.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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i've been having fun with an Olympus Pen EE-s for some time. It's still a cult camera in Asia and there are very serious photographers producing fabulous work in Japan especially. It takes a bit to get your head around and as well to discover the unique possibilities it offers. There are other Half-frames around, but Olympus always was the one to go to.