Just bought a new but discontinued Olympus Pen-F. The 14-42mm lens is a budget lens, so I'll get a 17mm and/or a 25mm to use as a main lens. Should arrive from Japan in about a week.

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I had to take photography classes in college, so in 1975 I bought an Olympus 35RC rangefinder. All the other students had a Canon AE1 or a Nikon F1 and looked down their nose at my little rangefinder, but guess who got the highest grade four semesters in a row.

After graduating and starting to make money, I went out and bought the new Olympus OM-1n with a 50mm prime lens. I eventually added four more lenses and the Winder 2, as well as a bunch of other Olympus accessories. I used this kit for 25 years and shot 87 million photos with it.

Always had a handful of Olympus XA, Stylus and Infinity point-and-shoot camera for the wife and kids to use.

I eventually bought an Olympus Evolt E-500 four-thirds camera. It took great photos, but it's a big bulky thing to carry around or to load in the tankbag of my motorcycle. And it's only 8MP.

At work, I had to use a Canon EOS 1Ds MkIII in the photo studio for product photos, tethered to a Mac to suck in raw TIFFs with Capture One Pro. The 24-105mm lens was versatile but not very sharp, and it produced lots of color fringing.

I had planned to buy a Micro 4/3 Olympus OM-1 or the less expensive OM-D, but other things kept coming up. Finally got around to it, and opted for the retro Pen-F after thinking about my old 35RC, and how compact it was and how easy it was to carry. I still have it.



Not my photo, but just to show how small it is.

My first proper film camera was an OM-1.    Bought at the BX on Otis AFB, probably 1977 or so.  Got a 35RC, too, now.  

Olympus has a lot to answer for with regard to the rotting mirror foam in the OM1 and OM2.  Eventually will ruin the view out the stunning big bright viewfinder that was pretty exclusive back then.

Love to see a picture of your Nikon F1 .  Wink, wink.

After almost 50 years, Olympus would say tough shit about the mirror foam, especially since Olympus (now OM Systems) looks like they will be exiting the digital camera sector for good.

There was never a Nikon F1, just the F and the F2, but we called them F1's, just to distinguish them. We had three of these at the first job I had out of college, working for a film animation/design studio on the 18th floor of the Playboy Building on North Michigan Avenue in 1979.



We also had two Forox animation stands, which were Oxberry stands re-engineered by Forox. Inside each was a motor-controlled Nikon F with the transport mechanism replaced by a pin-registered system. The pentaprism was replaced with a Forox viewfinder and the film backs were replaced to feed 100 feet of 35mm Ektachrome 160 from spools. The camera could zoom up and down on its twin columns and the bed could pan in any direction.



We also had the same Nikon camera set-up in two Marron-Carrell animation stands, which did 1:1 film copying/animation.



All our Nikon cameras wore 80mm Schneider Kreuznach lenses.

I sometimes miss the film animation days.

I often miss the 1980s.

I always miss working in the Playboy building.

Awesome history.  I do have a Nikon F1.  Well, F, as you point out.  Found one at a flea market, then later found an F2.  Several years went by before finding a F3.  Love them all.  

All the girls I got to photograph were ships and submarines.

Cheers!

Haven't really followed their digital stuff, but I recently got into film photography and picked up a older Pen FT half frame camera. I just bought it on Sunday and got my light meter in last night. Loaded up some 200 ISO film today to test it out.

The Pen F is an awesome little camera.
I put a 25mm lens on mine as a walk-around lens - translates to ~50mm on full-frame cameras.
At 20mp it's not bad resolution, and is so reminiscent of carrying a 1960s SLR.

Look at the OMD EM-1ii also. It is still a very nice camera also.

Some of the most fun times I had in photography class was using a plastic Diana camera: plastic lens, 1 1/4" film that had to be loaded/unloaded in the dark then duct tape the camera shut so the dark didn't leak out.
An acquaintance earned an MFA in Photography using one of them.
I, on the other hand, was encouraged to not quit my day job.