C41
Kodak Gold 200
Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
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The Olympus Pen FV (1967) is the third and final body in Yoshihisa Maitani's interchangeable-lens half-frame SLR series. It shares the Pen FT's chassis — rotary titanium focal-plane shutter, porro-prism viewfinder, Olympus Pen F mount — but omits the TTL CdS meter entirely. Removing the meter cell clears the light path and produces a fractionally brighter finder than the FT, which mattered to photographers who relied on external meters or the sunny-16 rule. No battery is required. The FV was produced alongside the FT from 1967 to 1970.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the half-frame-35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
View profile →C41
Kodak UltraMax 400 is a versatile consumer-grade ISO 400 daylight-balanced color negative film with T-grain emulsion, delivering warm Kodak colors, fine-for-speed grain (PGI 46), and wide exposure latitude. Currently in production and available globally as a single-roll and multi-pack.
View profile →BW
Develop half-frame-35mm film
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Before you buy used
About this camera
The Pen FT without the meter. Brighter finder, full Pen F lens system, no battery dependency.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm half-frame (18x24 mm) |
| Mount | Olympus Pen F |
| Years | 1967-1970 |
| Shutter | 1s - 1/500s, rotary titanium focal-plane |
| Flash sync | All speeds |
| Meter | None |
| Modes | Manual |
| Weight | ~460 g |
| Battery | None |
| Viewfinder | Porro-prism SLR, 1.0x magnification |
Released 1967 as the simplified companion to the metered Pen FT (1966). The original Pen F (1963) also had no meter; when Olympus added TTL metering in the FT, they retained a meterless option for photographers who objected to the finder dimming. The three Pen F-series bodies overlap in production:
All three share the same Pen F interchangeable lens mount and rotary shutter mechanism. Total Pen F-series production across all three bodies was approximately 250,000 units.
The FV is the least common of the three Pen F-series bodies, which makes it slightly harder to find on the used market. Its main practical advantage over the FT is battery independence: with no CdS cell, it needs no power at all. The mercury PX625 voltage workaround that Pen FT owners must navigate simply does not apply.
For photographers pairing a Pen F-mount body with external metering (a separate meter app or handheld), the FV offers the full Pen F optical system without the maintenance liability of a 60s CdS circuit. The porro-prism finder remains the same 1.0x magnification as the FT.
The Pen F mount is shared across all three Pen SLR bodies. Key lenses:
Accessories: auto bellows for the mount exist. Standard cold/hot-shoe flash via leaf-shutter-equivalent sync at all speeds from the rotary shutter design.
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →Olympus Pen FV
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