Olympus Pen D21964

History

Yoshihisa Maitani introduced the Pen D in 1962 as the fast-lens, no-meter option in the expanding Pen range. Where the Pen EE (1961) had given casual users a selenium-metered automatic camera, the Pen D was aimed at photographers who wanted the fastest available glass in the half-frame format and were willing to meter themselves. The D2 appeared in 1964 with the main practical improvement being the 1/500s ceiling. Production was short - the Pen D3 arrived in 1965 carrying a CdS meter, and the fully-manual D line ended there. The D2 is consequently less common than the D3 and not always easy to find in good condition.

Why It Matters

The D2 sits at a precise intersection: the fastest Pen lens before the CdS meter arrived in the D3, with enough shutter speed to be practical in bright sun. f/1.9 on a half-frame camera is genuinely fast - it allows available-light shooting in interiors that would defeat the selenium-metered Pen EE variants. The 32mm focal length on the 18x24mm half-frame negative gives a field of view roughly equivalent to 45-46mm on full 35mm, sitting close to a natural perspective.

For collectors, the D2 is interesting precisely because of its brief production window. It represents the mature manual-exposure Pen before metering was added, and the small body with a relatively large f/1.9 front element creates a visual balance unusual for cameras of its era.

References

• Camera-Wiki: Olympus Pen D2
• Wikipedia: Olympus Pen

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