WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.865 Today I’d like to show you what might be my very favorite camera. 00:00:04.865 --> 00:00:08.536 This is an Olympus Pen EES-2. 00:00:08.536 --> 00:00:14.463 It’s a 35mm point-and-shoot camera from the late  1960’s and there are two remarkable things about it. 00:00:14.463 --> 00:00:17.564 The first is that this is a half-frame camera. 00:00:17.564 --> 00:00:24.488 Rather than expose the typical 36 by 24mm section of film (the standard 35mm still image) 00:00:24.488 --> 00:00:29.283 it splits that in half and shoots an 18 by 24mm frame. 00:00:29.283 --> 00:00:33.098 The upshot of doing this is a slightly smaller camera (?) 00:00:33.098 --> 00:00:38.840 and supposedly the Pen name comes from the camera’s diminutive size. [said ever-so-skeptically] 00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:42.807 I mean it’s not that small in the grand scheme but I... I guess I’ll roll with it. 00:00:42.807 --> 00:00:45.038 Oh, citation needed. Interesting. 00:00:45.038 --> 00:00:51.657 Anyway, my favorite consequence of halving the frame is that you get double the exposures on every roll of film. 00:00:51.657 --> 00:00:53.076 That’s pretty neat! 00:00:53.076 --> 00:00:58.121 You’ll see that the exposure counter goes  to 72 rather than the typical 36. 00:00:58.121 --> 00:01:02.820 However many exposures are on the roll you’re putting in  the camera, this camera will let you take double that! 00:01:03.540 --> 00:01:08.940 Half-frame cameras were something of a fad in the 1960’s, but the fad would quickly die out.   00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:11.886 Frankly, I’m not sure why. 00:01:11.886 --> 00:01:16.104 You’d think people would appreciate getting double the exposures with every roll of film, 00:01:16.104 --> 00:01:19.159 even if it meant a slight reduction in quality. 00:01:19.159 --> 00:01:25.238 I mean, for basic family photos and snapshots a half-frame still holds plenty of detail. 00:01:25.238 --> 00:01:32.546 These are some of my favorite shots I've taken with this camera; I’ve enlarged them to 8X10 size and they’re still sharp-as-a-tack. 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:37.347 Actually, as a matter of fact, the sideways film frames this shoots 00:01:37.347 --> 00:01:40.960 are the same size as a 35mm motion picture frame. 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:45.242 And back in the day we were regularly blowing those up to movie screen sizes. 00:01:45.242 --> 00:01:48.480 Because, ya know, movies were shot on this film stuff. 00:01:49.020 --> 00:01:52.799 If I were to guess what caused the demise of the half-frame concept, 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:59.280 it would be that unlike virtually all cameras which orient the frame  so that it matches the camera’s orientation, 00:01:59.795 --> 00:02:02.317 this one is backwards! 00:02:02.317 --> 00:02:05.700 Holding it up in the natural camera-holding position produces... 00:02:06.420 --> 00:02:08.522 a portrait frame, 00:02:08.522 --> 00:02:12.420 and if you want landscape frames you need to turn the camera sideways. 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:18.146 That’s a bit awkward, and since people  tend to want a wider-than-tall image, 00:02:18.146 --> 00:02:21.581 this may have been seen as quite a downside back in its day. 00:02:21.581 --> 00:02:26.992 There were some half-frame cameras that got around this by running the film vertically through the body, 00:02:26.992 --> 00:02:33.101 but as a result they had wildly different form factors  from what people were used to in a camera.   00:02:33.101 --> 00:02:35.401 There’s really no way to get around this basic shape, 00:02:35.401 --> 00:02:41.632 so while you might be able to move controls around and make this its more natural orientation... 00:02:42.379 --> 00:02:44.067 that would still be weird. 00:02:44.067 --> 00:02:48.397 For what it’s worth, I find this pretty interesting from a creativity perspective. 00:02:48.397 --> 00:02:52.557 It’s easy to overlook turning a camera sideways for a portrait shot, 00:02:52.557 --> 00:02:57.653 but that’s this camera’s natural orientation so you almost have to consider it. 00:02:57.653 --> 00:03:01.747 As it happens, Kodak recently released a point-and-shoot half frame camera 00:03:01.747 --> 00:03:05.400 so I suppose the idea might be coming back in vogue with the resurgence of film. 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:08.693 Especially since it’s getting kinda pricey. 00:03:08.693 --> 00:03:15.195 One thing people like to do with this format is plan images in pairs and print them together like this, 00:03:15.195 --> 00:03:21.554 though frankly I’ve never really considered that and just treat them as individual images when I’m shooting. 00:03:21.554 --> 00:03:28.864 I think that got started because most film processing labs and scanners really don’t know what to do with half-frames — 00:03:28.864 --> 00:03:34.476 despite the fact that the film edge markings clearly  accommodate them and have since forever ago! 00:03:34.476 --> 00:03:39.321 so the roll gets scanned or even printed as 36 pairs of images. 00:03:39.321 --> 00:03:40.401 But c’mon, folks. 00:03:40.401 --> 00:03:42.045 You can crop them. 00:03:42.259 --> 00:03:44.662 Anyway I’m still talking about the half-frame part, 00:03:44.662 --> 00:03:51.164 and that’s not nearly as interesting as the fact that this camera has fully automatic exposure control, 00:03:51.164 --> 00:03:53.775 yet it doesn’t need any batteries. 00:03:53.775 --> 00:03:59.049 In fact there’s nowhere to put them because this is a light-powered camera. 00:04:00.600 --> 00:04:06.542 OK, powered might be a stretch - you still wind the film manually with this thumb-wheel, 00:04:06.542 --> 00:04:10.012 uh, this crank is for rewinding at the end of a roll... 00:04:10.012 --> 00:04:13.229 basically the film-handling bits are all human-powered. 00:04:13.229 --> 00:04:16.732 But the shutter speed and aperture are set automatically. 00:04:16.732 --> 00:04:22.768 It will even prevent you from taking a picture if there’s not enough light - a little red flag pops up in the viewfinder, 00:04:22.768 --> 00:04:26.495 and a mechanical interlock prevents the shutter from releasing. 00:04:26.495 --> 00:04:31.960 This is a true point-and-shoot camera, completely automatic (aside from focusing) 00:04:31.960 --> 00:04:35.718 despite not needing a power source and being entirely analog. 00:04:36.259 --> 00:04:37.245 [shutter clicks] 00:04:37.245 --> 00:04:40.045 You might be wondering how this works. 00:04:40.045 --> 00:04:43.268 Good thing you clicked on this particular video ‘cause I’m gonna tell ya! 00:04:43.268 --> 00:04:48.020 But first, a one-paragraph explanation on camera basics. 00:04:48.020 --> 00:04:51.252 Photographic film has a certain sensitivity to light, 00:04:51.252 --> 00:04:57.587 and to form images correctly on the film, you need to control how much light hits it during exposure - 00:04:57.587 --> 00:05:01.160 too much, and the image will appear bright with little detail, 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:04.241 not enough and an image may not form at all. 00:05:04.241 --> 00:05:07.613 A camera has two means of controlling the exposure: 00:05:07.613 --> 00:05:12.357 a variable lens aperture which changes how much  light is allowed through the lens, 00:05:12.357 --> 00:05:18.060 and how long it keeps the shutter open and exposing the  film to that light, known as the shutter speed. 00:05:18.840 --> 00:05:22.709 Adjustments to these values are made in what are called stops, 00:05:22.709 --> 00:05:27.781 with each stop doubling or halving the amount of light allowed onto the film. 00:05:27.781 --> 00:05:34.914 For example, a 1/50 of a second shutter speed allows one stop more — twice as much — light 00:05:34.914 --> 00:05:37.320 compared to a 1/100 second shutter speed. 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:43.372 That can be compensated for by closing  the lens aperture down by one stop,   00:05:43.372 --> 00:05:46.138 which allows half as much light through it. 00:05:46.138 --> 00:05:51.253 Professional photographers might want to do that to increase the depth of focusing field, 00:05:51.253 --> 00:05:57.755 or they might want to open the lens wider and use a faster shutter speed to reduce motion blur. 00:05:57.755 --> 00:06:01.380 This camera, though, well it handles all that for you. 00:06:01.380 --> 00:06:05.758 Most of this camera’s exposure control is done with the aperture. 00:06:05.758 --> 00:06:09.594 In its resting state, the aperture is closed all the way. 00:06:09.594 --> 00:06:13.805 What you’re seeing in the center of the lens is the opening made by the aperture blades. 00:06:13.805 --> 00:06:19.915 This camera has a square aperture which is a little weird but it works just fine. 00:06:19.915 --> 00:06:25.989 The itty-bitty almost-pinhole  is the lens in its most stopped-down state, ƒ/22. 00:06:26.640 --> 00:06:33.107 The aperture is mechanically linked to the shutter button, and as you press it in, the aperture opens up. 00:06:33.107 --> 00:06:37.337 When it’s all the way open, the camera lets as much light through as it can. 00:06:37.337 --> 00:06:40.773 In this case the widest ƒ-stop is 2.8. 00:06:40.773 --> 00:06:43.460 Just to be clear, this is not the shutter. 00:06:43.460 --> 00:06:46.572 That’s behind the lens and we can’t see it here. 00:06:46.572 --> 00:06:53.880 The shutter remains closed, preventing light from hitting the film, except for that fraction of a second when you actually snap a photo. 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:58.323 You can manually select different aperture values with this ring. 00:06:58.323 --> 00:07:01.580 You’ll notice that when I pick a value somewhere in the middle, 00:07:01.580 --> 00:07:08.006 the blades start to open with the shutter button as before, but now they stop opening mid-way. 00:07:08.006 --> 00:07:12.144 This here is ƒ/5.6, a fairly typical setting. 00:07:12.144 --> 00:07:15.999 But, watch what happens when I switch this to auto mode. 00:07:15.999 --> 00:07:19.547 The aperture is back to opening all the way with the shutter button. 00:07:19.547 --> 00:07:27.087 But if I shine a little light into the camera's lens and press the button, well now the aperture doesn’t open all the way. 00:07:27.087 --> 00:07:31.970 If I make the light very intense, the aperture hardly moves at all. 00:07:31.970 --> 00:07:35.957 Somehow, this is reacting to more light hitting the lens 00:07:35.957 --> 00:07:42.000 and reducing how much the aperture opens to compensate and produce equivalent exposures on film. 00:07:43.158 --> 00:07:44.606 That’s pretty wild. 00:07:45.060 --> 00:07:49.132 To understand how this works, first I want to show you something else. 00:07:49.132 --> 00:07:54.505 When using a fully-manual camera, to know what aperture and shutter speed settings you should use 00:07:54.505 --> 00:07:57.660 a light meter is awfully handy. 00:07:57.660 --> 00:08:00.878 This here is a simple handheld light meter 00:08:00.878 --> 00:08:03.302 which consists of a light sensor here, 00:08:03.302 --> 00:08:05.743 a dial with a buncha numbers there, 00:08:05.743 --> 00:08:08.155 and a simple display down below. 00:08:08.155 --> 00:08:12.747 The needle in that display moves depending on how much light hits the sensor, 00:08:12.747 --> 00:08:17.168 and by turning the dial so that the little red-circle-on-a-stick thing surrounds the needle, 00:08:17.168 --> 00:08:21.225 you end up with a chart of acceptable shutter speed and aperture settings. 00:08:21.225 --> 00:08:26.431 Changing the film speed setting simply moves the aperture values independent of the rest of the mechanism 00:08:26.431 --> 00:08:29.040 which effectively factors in the film’s sensitivity. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:35.821 The reason I wanted to show you this particular light meter is that this also doesn’t use batteries. 00:08:35.821 --> 00:08:40.576 The sensor here is a selenium light cell, an early photovoltaic cell. 00:08:40.576 --> 00:08:43.386 Think of it like a really old solar panel. 00:08:43.386 --> 00:08:48.327 When light hits it, it generates a voltage and that’s what’s moving the needle. 00:08:48.327 --> 00:08:52.961 Basically all this is is an old-fangled solar cell hooked up to a voltmeter 00:08:52.961 --> 00:08:58.440 that’s been repurposed alongside a clever  slide-rule-like chart handy to photographers. 00:08:59.160 --> 00:09:05.358 The characteristics of the cell’s output are very  useful in photography because it’s logarithmic;   00:09:05.358 --> 00:09:10.090 each doubling of light that hits the cell moves the needle the same amount. 00:09:10.090 --> 00:09:14.692 So if there’s twice as much light it will move the needle one ƒ-stop over, 00:09:14.692 --> 00:09:20.692 which of course realigns the chart by one stop once you move the circle-on-a-stick thing. 00:09:20.692 --> 00:09:24.053 A quadrupling of light would move the needle two stops over, 00:09:24.053 --> 00:09:27.754 an eight-fold increase would result  in three stops of movement, 00:09:27.754 --> 00:09:29.548 and you get the idea. 00:09:29.548 --> 00:09:35.986 The honeycomb lensing in front of the cell  makes it most sensitive to a camera’s general field of view. 00:09:35.986 --> 00:09:38.992 I don’t know what exactly the frame is this guy’s looking for, 00:09:38.992 --> 00:09:43.691 but the idea is that you can just point this in the general direction of where you want to take a picture 00:09:43.691 --> 00:09:46.140 and it’ll give you decent exposure settings. 00:09:46.560 --> 00:09:53.198 It’ll be a scene average so more particular photographers would want to take that into account for high-contrast scenes, 00:09:53.198 --> 00:10:00.637 and might even want to bring this guy up to something in the scene that will register as a middle-gray and take a more selective reading. 00:10:00.637 --> 00:10:06.900 Oh and you definitely want to shade the sensor from direct  sunlight as that will absolutely skew the reading. 00:10:06.900 --> 00:10:15.005 Now, you might have already noticed that the lens of  the Olympus Pen is surrounded by a similar-looking honeycomb stuff. 00:10:15.005 --> 00:10:16.966 Intriguing, right? 00:10:16.966 --> 00:10:25.024 Now might be a good time to mention that the EE in EES-2 stands for Electronic Eye. 00:10:25.024 --> 00:10:30.302 Let’s go ahead and assume that the honeycomb stuff is some sorta light meter 00:10:30.302 --> 00:10:31.406 (because it is). 00:10:31.406 --> 00:10:39.398 How could we design a camera which uses the mechanism of a conventional light meter to automatically set an exposure setting? 00:10:39.398 --> 00:10:41.854 Well, remember how the aperture functions? 00:10:41.854 --> 00:10:46.519 It starts out all the way closed, and it’s opened by  the shutter button. 00:10:46.519 --> 00:10:52.419 But when enough light lands on the lens, something stops it from opening all the way. 00:10:52.419 --> 00:10:55.233 What could that something be? 00:10:55.233 --> 00:10:56.428 Well, 00:10:56.428 --> 00:11:02.366 through the Magic of Buying Two of Them, I have an already taken apart one right here which I can show you! 00:11:02.760 --> 00:11:09.619 Here is the light meter and viewfinder assembly  from an earlier variant of this camera, the Pen EE-S. 00:11:09.619 --> 00:11:11.952 We have the selenium light cell here, 00:11:11.952 --> 00:11:17.281 and a couple of itsy bitsy wires connect it through a resistor to this… 00:11:17.281 --> 00:11:18.515 thing. 00:11:18.515 --> 00:11:21.326 Notice there’s a needle sticking out of it? 00:11:21.326 --> 00:11:26.010 Well, watch what happens when I shine more light onto the cell. 00:11:26.010 --> 00:11:28.179 That needle moved! 00:11:28.179 --> 00:11:36.283 This is the same exact concept as the hand-held light meter, but rearranged, miniaturized, and stuck into a camera body. 00:11:36.780 --> 00:11:41.091 But hang on, how does that translate into an exposure setting? 00:11:41.400 --> 00:11:43.387 Surely there must be more to it. 00:11:43.387 --> 00:11:44.302 Well, 00:11:44.302 --> 00:11:50.263 through the Magic of Buying Three of Them, I have a not-yet-taken-apart-one right here! 00:11:51.101 --> 00:11:55.494 This is another EES-2, but in grey, and I need to disassemble it 00:11:55.494 --> 00:11:58.928 because the shutter blades are sticking and need to be cleaned. 00:11:58.928 --> 00:12:06.751 This process is fiddly and finicky, involving tiny little screws and also removing the lens’s front element. 00:12:06.751 --> 00:12:15.333 Which is a pretty precarious proposition as focusing is accomplished by rotating that element and thus slightly unscrewing it from the body, 00:12:15.333 --> 00:12:22.069 so before you take it apart you absolutely need to set focus to infinity and mark the lens position somehow 00:12:22.069 --> 00:12:25.115 so you can put it back exactly where it was. 00:12:25.115 --> 00:12:29.113 If you mess that up, all your pictures will be blurry as heck. 00:12:29.370 --> 00:12:30.934 Ask me how I know! 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:36.067 Anyway, once we’re to this point  we can see the needle — barely.   00:12:36.067 --> 00:12:37.851 It’s tucked right up here. 00:12:37.851 --> 00:12:41.917 Right now it’s free-floating, and you can see it react to incoming light. 00:12:41.917 --> 00:12:44.880 It really is just like the light meter we were looking at. 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:49.509 But when I depress the shutter button, well the magic happens. 00:12:49.509 --> 00:12:55.493 An intricate series of linkages cause a pair of feelers to move upward towards that needle. 00:12:55.493 --> 00:13:00.978 The first feeler touches the needle and jams it against a stop right above it to keep it from moving. 00:13:00.978 --> 00:13:06.131 Then a second feeler with sloping, stepped teeth approaches the needle. 00:13:06.131 --> 00:13:10.658 That second feeler is connected to the aperture mechanism of the camera, 00:13:10.658 --> 00:13:16.414 and where it stops along its journey upward determines how far the aperture will open. 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:19.682 And the needle is what stops it. 00:13:19.682 --> 00:13:21.153 See where this is going? 00:13:21.153 --> 00:13:28.163 When there’s less light hitting the camera,  the needle is farther to the right, which is among the skinnier parts of the feeler. 00:13:28.163 --> 00:13:34.475 That allows it to travel farther upward - notice how the thicker parts of the feeler are now above the needle. 00:13:34.475 --> 00:13:39.513 With the feeler in this high position, it opens the aperture blades a great amount. 00:13:39.513 --> 00:13:43.803 But as more light hits the camera, the needle is pushed farther to the left, 00:13:43.803 --> 00:13:49.325 so the feeler’s thicker parts will hit it first and thus it can’t travel as far upward. 00:13:49.325 --> 00:13:56.197 That prevents the aperture from opening as much, reducing the amount of light that can travel through the lens to compensate. 00:13:56.197 --> 00:14:00.729 Each doubling of light hitting the lens pushes the needle one stop over, 00:14:00.729 --> 00:14:04.818 which in turn restricts the opening  of the aperture by one stop, 00:14:04.818 --> 00:14:11.350 thus the amount of light that makes it through the lens remains  consistent no matter how bright the scene is. 00:14:11.700 --> 00:14:13.606 Pretty clever, huh? 00:14:13.606 --> 00:14:20.879 A simple integration of a selenium light cell and analog meter mechanism into a camera body’s aperture mechanism 00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:23.486 allows for automatic exposure control. 00:14:24.180 --> 00:14:28.680 But you might have noticed that the  aperture feeler has two sections to it.   00:14:28.680 --> 00:14:30.755 What’s going on with that? 00:14:30.755 --> 00:14:34.800 Ah, well, this camera actually has two shutter speeds. 00:14:34.800 --> 00:14:39.338 It will either shoot at 1/200 of a second or 1/40 of a second, 00:14:39.338 --> 00:14:44.433 and that first feeler which traps the needle is what determines which one it will use. 00:14:44.433 --> 00:14:49.594 Oh, by the way, this arrangement is often called trap-needle metering. 00:14:49.594 --> 00:14:51.824 Probably should have brought that up earlier. 00:14:51.824 --> 00:14:56.841 Anyway, you might have caught that the first  feeler itself had two steps to it. 00:14:56.841 --> 00:15:01.011 If the needle is far enough to the right that the higher part  of the feeler hits it, 00:15:01.011 --> 00:15:06.538 the shutter will engage with a delay mechanism which holds it open for just an itty bit. 00:15:06.538 --> 00:15:08.400 That’s the 1/40 of a second speed. 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.896 Here’s how that works: winding the film puts the shutter mechanism under tension. 00:15:13.896 --> 00:15:18.246 When it releases, this small cam will quickly make a complete rotation, 00:15:18.246 --> 00:15:22.536 which rapidly opens and closes the shutter blades through this linkage. 00:15:22.536 --> 00:15:28.208 On that cam is a protrusion which will hit this piece of metal and stop its motion. 00:15:28.208 --> 00:15:34.451 That piece of metal is attached to this spring-loaded brass weight, which right now I’m preventing from moving. 00:15:34.451 --> 00:15:40.937 When I let go of it, the force of the shutter’s spring will push the weight out of its way, and the shutter closes. 00:15:40.937 --> 00:15:47.909 The function of the lever and weight is to deliberately (and literally) get in the way of the shutter mechanism’s movement, 00:15:47.909 --> 00:15:52.982 with the mass of that weight providing  a calibrated delay that slows it down. 00:15:52.982 --> 00:15:58.505 But if the needle is beyond that first step, the  feeler will travel a bit farther upward - 00:15:58.505 --> 00:16:03.540 just enough so that this lever will travel  beyond this linkage and allow it to move. 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:06.273 Now, as the shutter button is depressed, 00:16:06.273 --> 00:16:10.361 the weight and its stop are pushed out of the way by the linkage. 00:16:10.361 --> 00:16:15.846 With the delay no longer in the picture, the shutter mechanism fires in one swift motion. 00:16:15.846 --> 00:16:17.266 Let’s look at that again. 00:16:17.266 --> 00:16:25.209 With moderate light levels, the needle stops the feeler here so this lever prevents this linkage from moving with the shutter button. 00:16:25.560 --> 00:16:31.020 When the shutter fires, the shutter cam will slam into the weight, briefly holding it open. 00:16:31.620 --> 00:16:35.529 But if there’s enough light, the needle stops the feeler here. 00:16:35.529 --> 00:16:38.747 And now that lever out of the way of the linkage, 00:16:38.747 --> 00:16:45.395 so it will actually push the weight out of the way as you press the shutter button and therefore bypass the delay. 00:16:45.900 --> 00:16:51.960 Take a listen to what those shutter releases sound like - the difference is a bit subtle, but see if you can hear it.   00:16:59.460 --> 00:17:04.687 At the slow speed, you can hear the shutter  open and close as two discrete clicks. 00:17:04.687 --> 00:17:07.077 [two discrete clicks] 00:17:07.077 --> 00:17:13.350 But at the fast speed, you only hear one click as the  shutter is opened and shut in one smooth motion. 00:17:13.350 --> 00:17:14.495 [one click] 00:17:14.495 --> 00:17:20.540 The transition between steps in the shutter  feeler lines up perfectly with the aperture feeler’s little kink. 00:17:20.540 --> 00:17:23.820 And this is designed to prioritize the higher shutter speed. 00:17:24.420 --> 00:17:30.128 The farthest right position represents a 1/40 of a second exposure at ƒ/2.8. 00:17:30.128 --> 00:17:33.737 That’s the widest-open lens at the slowest shutter speed. 00:17:33.737 --> 00:17:41.820 But as soon as there’s enough light to make a 1/200 exposure work, the aperture scale resets and we start again at ƒ/2.8.   00:17:42.840 --> 00:17:46.154 This won’t mean much to you if you’re not familiar with cameras, 00:17:46.154 --> 00:17:53.726 but for a consumer camera this design makes perfect sense as a 1/40 second exposure requires a fairly steady hand,   00:17:53.726 --> 00:17:56.657 but 1/200 is much more forgiving. 00:17:56.657 --> 00:17:59.775 Best to use the faster shutter speed whenever possible. 00:17:59.775 --> 00:18:03.375 Ah, but what about that red-flag shutter interlock doohickey? 00:18:03.375 --> 00:18:04.989 How’s that work? 00:18:04.989 --> 00:18:07.845 Well, if there’s not enough light to take a photo, 00:18:07.845 --> 00:18:11.193 the needle won’t even reach the position of the feelers. 00:18:11.193 --> 00:18:15.516 That means they’ll go right past the needle when they start moving upward, 00:18:15.516 --> 00:18:21.028 and that jambs the shutter mechanism while lifting the little red flag up into the viewfinder. 00:18:21.028 --> 00:18:26.723 One of the things I really like about this camera's design is that its lens cap covers the light sensor 00:18:26.723 --> 00:18:30.849 so if you left that on it won’t let you waste the frame. 00:18:30.849 --> 00:18:31.994 Very nice. 00:18:31.994 --> 00:18:38.641 Oh, and to explain the manual aperture settings, they’re marked “for flash” as that’s their main purpose. 00:18:38.641 --> 00:18:44.637 On manual settings the sensor is ignored and the shutter will always fire at 1/40 of a second. 00:18:44.637 --> 00:18:51.115 Using a chart on your flash unit and estimating the distance to your subject, you’ll set the aperture accordingly. 00:18:51.115 --> 00:18:55.964 The hot shoe on top was one of the things added for the EES-2. 00:18:55.964 --> 00:19:00.558 Now, you might wonder how the camera compensates  for different film speeds. 00:19:00.558 --> 00:19:08.238 There is a film speed selector ring on the lens and this model will meter for any speed between 25 and 400 ISO. 00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:10.981 How is it doing that? 00:19:10.981 --> 00:19:14.145 Well, watch as I change the film speeds. 00:19:14.145 --> 00:19:19.364 Notice how as I get closer to 25, the numbers are getting closer together. 00:19:19.740 --> 00:19:21.469 Understand why? 00:19:21.469 --> 00:19:23.789 To make this work with different film speeds, 00:19:23.789 --> 00:19:29.592 Olympus didn’t need to do anything fancy like incorporate a variable resistor, instead... 00:19:29.592 --> 00:19:32.238 they just cover up parts of the sensor! 00:19:32.238 --> 00:19:37.515 It’s hard to see but the actual sensor only  occupies half of the circle around the lens, 00:19:37.515 --> 00:19:41.673 and turning the speed selector is sliding a cover over it. 00:19:41.673 --> 00:19:47.341 When shooting 400 speed film, all of the sensor is exposed to light so it’s at its most sensitive. 00:19:47.341 --> 00:19:51.895 The needle will move as far as it ever will with a given amount of light. 00:19:51.895 --> 00:19:59.940 But when you use 200 speed film, which is half as sensitive to light, you need twice as much light to hit the film to get a correct exposure. 00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:06.377 And as silly as it sounds, just covering up half of the sensor surface will compensate. 00:20:06.377 --> 00:20:11.880 That will make it so that twice as much light is needed to  put the needle in the same position as before. 00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:13.398 See how that works? 00:20:13.398 --> 00:20:17.153 It’s basically just fooling the light meter into thinking there’s less light, 00:20:17.153 --> 00:20:22.663 so it responds by opening up the aperture by  one stop for every half of the sensor you block. 00:20:23.280 --> 00:20:30.420 Cover up half again and now only ¼ of the sensor is exposed, so it is ¼ as sensitive as it was; 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:33.269 perfect for 100 speed film. 00:20:33.269 --> 00:20:40.747 Leave only ⅛ of it exposed and you’ve dulled the sensitivity another stop, making it work with 50 speed film. 00:20:40.747 --> 00:20:45.970 And at the slowest speed setting, 25, you need 16 times as much light 00:20:45.970 --> 00:20:51.300 so only a tiny sliver - 1/16 of the sensor’s surface - is exposed to light. 00:20:52.020 --> 00:20:57.815 Perhaps the most remarkable thing about  this metering system is how well it works.   00:20:57.815 --> 00:21:01.178 Despite being a design originally from 1961, 00:21:01.178 --> 00:21:06.736 a design which is mostly mechanical but with a selenium light meter cleverly hacked into it, 00:21:06.736 --> 00:21:08.820 this camera still functions perfectly. 00:21:10.080 --> 00:21:11.836 That is, once I gave it a little help. 00:21:11.836 --> 00:21:18.686 A common problem that pops up after 40 or 50 years is gunk on the aperture blades, which jams the mechanism. 00:21:18.686 --> 00:21:25.680 I needed to fix that on this camera when I got it; it’s very common but cleanup with isopropyl alcohol usually does the trick.   00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:30.600 Assuming it’s mechanically sound, though, this just… works. 00:21:31.260 --> 00:21:36.453 I’ve never taken a photo with this camera that wasn’t exposed at least mostly correctly. 00:21:36.453 --> 00:21:39.780 Negatives have decent and uniform density, color or black and white. 00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:45.566 About the only thing that occasionally happens  is a bit of washout in high-contrast scenes,   00:21:45.566 --> 00:21:49.621 but that’s to be expected with a meter which simply averages the frame. 00:21:49.621 --> 00:21:53.844 So long as you aren’t shooting the fastest speed one of these cameras supports, 00:21:53.844 --> 00:21:59.662 you could compensate by adjusting the ISO setting upward, causing it to underexpose the image. 00:21:59.662 --> 00:22:04.905 But leaving it set to your film’s box speed will almost always produce decent results. 00:22:04.905 --> 00:22:12.097 The lensing in front of the sensor is apparently very good at rejecting light from areas not in the camera’s field of view. 00:22:12.097 --> 00:22:16.692 Even shooting partially into the sun results in apparently decent exposures. 00:22:16.692 --> 00:22:22.774 I mean I’m sure I’ve done it several times and yet *all* the images I’ve taken with this are workable... 00:22:22.774 --> 00:22:24.000 exposure-wise at least. 00:22:24.540 --> 00:22:29.581 Now I should note that Olympus wasn’t the only  company making cameras that worked like this.   00:22:29.581 --> 00:22:34.680 The selenium light cell made its way into loads of cameras, even movie cameras like this one.   00:22:35.460 --> 00:22:39.182 But I’m nonetheless enamored with this particular camera. 00:22:39.182 --> 00:22:44.097 Its design and simplicity are just right in that sweet spot. 00:22:44.097 --> 00:22:52.281 And apparently Olympus did such a great job with this design that they’d slap it onto full-frame cameras like the venerable Trip 35. 00:22:53.182 --> 00:23:01.877 Once you get these side-by-side it’s clear that the design of the Trip 35 was more than just “inspired” by the Pen EES-2.   00:23:02.820 --> 00:23:07.860 These are the same camera mechanisms just  with different bodies and lens focal lengths.   00:23:07.860 --> 00:23:10.662 I mean even the lens caps are interchangeable. 00:23:10.662 --> 00:23:18.281 Oh! And the Trip has the same red flag which means it doesn’t fill the viewfinder because it’s too small! 00:23:18.281 --> 00:23:21.318 Oh right, and you’ll notice that the Trip... 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:24.660 is barely any bigger than the Pen. 00:23:25.355 --> 00:23:27.780 I mean, I guess it’s enough to be significant 00:23:27.780 --> 00:23:33.849 but I’m really not sure that making a smaller camera was the true goal of cutting the frame in half. 00:23:34.500 --> 00:23:38.123 Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this look into these cameras. 00:23:38.123 --> 00:23:44.464 There were quite a few Olympus Pen models back in the day, but it’s the EE series which intrigues me the most. 00:23:44.464 --> 00:23:51.000 Taking the concept of the humble light meter and using it in conjunction with simple levers, feelers, doodads, and whatsits   00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:57.825 to create a fully-automatic camera is the sort of  genius that we don’t often see today. 00:23:57.825 --> 00:24:02.876 Some really interesting innovation can happen when you take two different technologies — 00:24:02.876 --> 00:24:04.801 and connect them. 00:24:04.801 --> 00:24:05.391 [oof] 00:24:05.650 --> 00:24:08.227 ♫ olympically smooth jazz ♫ 00:24:09.801 --> 00:24:12.710 Today, I’d like to.. Ouhh bleglebleblbblblblberblbulbb 00:24:13.431 --> 00:24:17.086 Vooooogue. Sa, sa said that really weird. 00:24:17.884 --> 00:24:19.717 Kodak recently released a point-and-shoot... 00:24:19.717 --> 00:24:20.217 oh yeah 00:24:20.217 --> 00:24:20.985 I was ‘sposeda pick up the camar 00:24:20.985 --> 00:24:22.775 ba GAARRGHGHHGHGHGHG 00:24:22.775 --> 00:24:27.650 Though, frankly, I’ve never really considered that  and just treat them as individual shots when I’m… 00:24:29.246 --> 00:24:29.746 ppbbt! 00:24:30.644 --> 00:24:33.323 I’ve made an error in the script! 00:24:33.323 --> 00:24:38.374 Uh, so anyway the roll gets processed or even printed… eugh… 00:24:38.374 --> 00:24:39.208 [some sorta beastly snort-growl] 00:24:39.208 --> 00:24:41.917 A light meter is awfully handy. 00:24:41.917 --> 00:24:45.626 This here… I can’t grab things correctly. 00:24:46.260 --> 00:24:49.920 When it’s all the way open, the  camera left as much light through…   00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:53.791 Nope, that was just me not reading. 00:24:55.619 --> 00:24:58.333 So, apparently a lot of you giggle at "Pen EE-S" 00:24:58.333 --> 00:25:00.961 I gotta be honest, I'm not smelling what you're stepping in. 00:25:00.961 --> 00:25:03.463 That's similar to "pennies" - pen, E. 00:25:03.463 --> 00:25:04.182 Pen E. 00:25:04.182 --> 00:25:07.545 The other thing you might be thinking of starts with a syllable that rhymes with "keen." 00:25:07.545 --> 00:25:10.030 I mean, at least it does in my neck of the woods. 00:25:10.030 --> 00:25:10.842 Y'all are weird.