Earlier this week, we published a news article about a new Sony lens, along with a sample gallery we shot with it. That gallery came with the following editor’s note:

“Due to a memory card failure, this sample gallery contains fewer images than usual; most of the photos captured for it were lost before they could be transferred.”

Reader Horshack pointed out that the camera I used to shoot that gallery, the Sony a7 V, has two card slots, and proceeded to cut through my editor-speak in five words.

“The dog ate my homework.“

He meant it in good humor. He was also completely right. In every conceivable way, this was an unforced, preventable error.

It’s worth explaining why a reader spotted this so quickly. Camera enthusiasts love to talk about dual card slots. So much so that it’s become a bit of a running joke. When we write about an inexpensive novelty camera, we can reliably expect at least one reader to jokingly ask, “Does it have two card slots?” That meme even extends beyond digital; I can recall articles about film cameras where someone posted, “But does it have two film slots?”

Mitchell Clark

The joke works because the fixation seems excessive. I spent a night with data recovery software reconsidering that.

I had become complacent, which is usually when disaster strikes.

At DPReview, we’ve been shooting digital cameras for over two decades, and we’ve rarely had a memory card fail on us. I could count the number of failures I’ve personally experienced on one hand and have several fingers left over. I’ve used cards from every major manufacturer, and they’ve been consistently reliable. Intellectually, I know card failures can happen, but in my experience, they’ve happened so rarely that it was easy to ignore the risk.

In a nutshell, my choice to use a single card was proportionate to the perceived risk.

I blocked out a full day to shoot with the lens before it had to go back to Sony and had even traveled to find subjects that would be interesting to photograph with a fisheye: a ghost town in the Rocky Mountains and a new airport terminal with interesting architecture.

Dale Baskin

The total time between capturing the final image and inserting the card into my computer was only about three hours, during which the card never left the camera. But I got a sinking feeling the moment a “card not readable” error popped up on my screen. When I put it back into the camera, the a7 V told me the card needed to be formatted. Not good.

Hours later, in the middle of the night, with multiple data recovery tools in the rearview mirror, I gave up.

Fortunately, I have a habit of offloading photos and backing them up at the end of each day of shooting, so I had a few photos taken with the lens from the previous week. That’s what ran in the gallery.

Do I use two cards when working for a client or shooting a wedding? Every. Single. Time. After all, the job and your professional reputation are on the line. But it’s easy to think of shooting sample galleries for DPReview as part of daily life. We’re constantly toting around cameras and lenses, shooting whenever the opportunity arises. It’s often continuous rather than scheduled, and it’s easy to stop treating it as a job.

Richard Butler

At the risk of sounding alarmist, I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to shoot with two cards. Are we flirting with disaster when we use one card? In most cases, I don’t think so. It’s still rare that one fails, and unless you’re doing something mission-critical, it’s probably safer to say that you’re flirting with disappointment, frustration, and possibly sorrow. For most of us, most of the time, a single card is an acceptable risk.

The question worth asking when evaluating risk isn’t whether you’re shooting professionally. It’s whether the day is one you could shoot again. A walk around the neighborhood can be repeated. A day you blocked out, traveled for, and can’t redo because the lens has to go back tomorrow is not.

Dual card slots exist for a reason, and my recent experience is a good reminder of that. During a discussion with the team, Richard Butler pointed out that this isn’t a free option. Extra cards aren’t cheap, and managing two per body for a small amount of extra insurance isn’t a trivial cost. That’s a fair objection. But this experience has tested my personal risk tolerance, and going forward, my best practice will be to have two cards in the camera when shooting a sample gallery, if that option is available.

Have you lost photos from a memory card? If so, tell me about it in the comments.

Apple has announced its long-awaited take on the folding smartphone form-factor, and it’s called the iPhone Duo*. It features a “passport” style design, which is relatively short and wide, giving the interior screen an aspect ratio that’s better for watching video, viewing photos, and running apps side-by-side.

Like the iPhone Air, Apple says it’s managed to fit everything it needs to into the phone by putting “critical components” in the camera plateau. Of course, the protrusion also houses the Duo’s camera system, which, appropriately, features two cameras. The main camera features a 26mm equiv. lens and an F1.6 aperture – no adjustable aperture here – as well as a 48MP stabilized sensor. While the company doesn’t typically share sensor size info, the specs are an exact match for the iPhone Air’s Type 1/1.56 (48mm²) main camera, which would make it a substantial step down from the larger sensor used in the Pro phones.

Apple also says it’s using the same 48MP ultra-wide camera as the iPhone 18 Pro, which is almost certainly the same model found in the iPhone 17 Pro, featuring a Type 1/2.55 (23.5mm²) sensor.

Apple

Like Google before it, Apple is using the folding form factor to enhance the camera experience. It has a mode that lets you halfway fold the phone, so it will sit up on a surface with the cameras pointing outwards. The phone will then analyze the scene, taking pictures when it recognizes that everyone’s posing. The company says this makes it easier to take group shots and selfies without having to worry about a timer. There’s also a mode that will play cartoons on the front screen, aimed to make kids smile as you’re taking pictures of them.

Apple says durability was a big focus for the phone, and that the inner folding display is “designed to withstand the wear of everyday use.” Its frame is made from titanium, with the back glass getting Apple’s Ceramic Shield coating that makes it relatively resistant to shattering from drops. The glass covering the outer 5.4″ display uses the scratch-resistant Ceramic Shield 2 coating. The phone has an IP68 water and dust resistance rating, a rarity among folding phones (though Google’s Pixel Fold series has had it since last year).

According to Apple, the Duo has the “largest display for an iPhone” ever, with its interior screen measuring 7.6″ It features a “nano-texture” surface, similar to what Apple’s been providing on its iPads and Macs, that Apple says will minimize the risk of scratches (a common concern with foldables, which typically have a plastic screen protector that can be marked with a fingernail), and the visibility of the crease. Both of the phones’ screens have a 1:1.4 aspect ratio, and are capable of reaching 3000 nits peak brightness outdoors, and 1600 nits when viewing HDR content. Support for using them with the USB-C version of the Apple Pencil stylus will be coming in a later firmware update.

Apple

The phone does away with the FaceID authentication system that’s been ubiquitous on Apple’s phones for the past few years. The phone instead features a fingerprint reader integrated into the power button. The phone also foregoes the customizable “Action” button, but keeps the touch-sensitive “Camera Control” button, which lets you launch the camera and control various settings, like zoom. However, the camera app doesn’t feature the manual control mode debuted on the iPhone 18 Pro, nor does it have the Reference Image content authenticity mode, ProRes Raw recording, Apple Log 2, and a host of other video features that Apple reserves for its pro phones.

The iPhone Duo uses the same A20 Pro system on a chip as the iPhone 18 Pro, which Apple says will provide an up to 35% performance uplift compared to the standard iPhone 17 Pro. It also features Apple’s new, in-house “C2” chip for cellular and wireless connectivity. To that matter, the phone is e-SIM only, world wide; that’s been the case for the company’s US models for a while, but international models have typically come with a slot. However, Apple says it needed as much room for the battery as possible.

Apple

Thankfully, the phone retains Apple’s MagSafe wireless charging system, which it can use to charge at up to 25W. It also has a 10Gbps USB-C port on the bottom. (Though Apple says you can use the phone in any orientation, so who’s to say it’s not the top or the side?) The compnay claims the phone has “all day battery,” though per usual doesn’t provide specific capacity figures. It does, however, say it can do 31 hours of video playback with the inner screen, and 44 hours with the outer screen, putting it a touch behind the 18 Pro Max, which can do 45 hours.

Apple says the iPhone Duo is its thinnest phone ever when unfolded, coming in at just 5.2mm thick. Of course, it takes up a bit more room when folded, at 11.3mm. It’s also relatively hefty at 254g (~9oz).

As is often the case, Apple’s first crack at the form factor is launching into a relatively mature market. Samsung is up to its eighth generation of foldables, which first debuted in 2019. Earlier this year, the company announced the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, which features a triple-camera setup, alongside the dual-camera Galaxy Z Fold 8, which features a “passport” form factor that’s a bit wider and substantially shorter. Likewise, Google recently announced its fourth foldable, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, which features three cameras. Companies like Xiaomi and Oppo also have several options, and have experimented with exotic form factors, such as tri-folds.

Apple

The phone will be available in black and silver. It starts at $1999 for a model with 256GB of storage, and the company says pre-orders start on October 16th, with the phone becoming available on the 23rd.

* – Nerdy fact: Microsoft already used this name for a foldable in 2020.

Apple has announced the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max at its annual fall keynote. Although the company started the event with AI features, the standout change in the new models’ camera system is the adjustable aperture.

Apple is pitching the new aperture system as a way to get more “creative control” while taking images and videos. Contrary to the rumors, the adjustable aperture is available on both sizes of the iPhone Pro. The company says it comprises six laser-cut blades, each thinner than a human hair.

Like the 17 Pro models, the 18 Pro and Pro Max feature a 48MP main camera with a 24mm equiv. lens. The ultrawide and telephoto cameras are also unchanged from their predecessors, both of which use 48MP Type 1/2.55 (23.5mm²) sensors.

Apple

The main camera is the only one that features the new adjustable aperture system, which can go from F1.48 to F4 (the 17 Pro’s main camera had a fixed F1.78 aperture), allowing for four adjustments. Apple is also finally adding “Pro Controls,” which allows users to manually control aperture, white balance and shutter speed, something people have been asking Apple to add for years. Additionally, its Photography Styles option now supports control over grain.

For video features, the camera supports 4K time-lapses, and you can now use cinematic mode (which adds fake background blur) at up to 4K/60.

Apple also touched on image authenticity, a hot-button topic in the age of AI. We’ve seen other phone manufacturers, like Google, implement C2PA content credentials in their cameras, letting you verify that a photograph hasn’t been altered since it was taken. Now, Apple is following suit, characteristically introducing its own system called Apple Reference Image.

Apple

The company says it’s made possible by a new sensor in the main camera that “can sign every pixel it sees.” Photos taken in the “Reference mode” will capture “signed sensor data that Private Cloud Compute develops into an unalterable reference image.” Oddly, the Apple Reference Image authenticity feature is not available in China, and won’t be available in the EU to start.

The company also says it’s adding support for the SynthID standard, which adds an invisible watermark to images created or edited using AI.

The iPhone 18 Pro features an A20 Pro system on a chip, which has a 6-core CPU with 2 “super” cores and 4 efficiency cores. It also features a 7-core GPU that Apple says is 40% faster than the previous generation. It should offer double the AI processing capacity as a result of double the neural cores. Apple also says it’s doubled the battery life, despite the battery being smaller. It supports faster wired charging, letting you charge it to 50% in 15 minutes.

Apple

Apple is offering the Pro in four color options this year, where it’s traditionally been three. It will be available in black, silver, “Glacier” blue, and “Burgundy.” Last year, some people were upset that there wasn’t a black option, so this will likely be a welcome addition to the lineup.

The iPhone 18 Pro will cost $1199 for the 256GB version, while the Pro Max comes in at $1299. Both the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max are $100 more than their predecessors.

Last month, we asked who your biggest photography inspirations were. From family and friends to distant colleagues, you expressed a wide array of people you follow to build the courage and excitement for taking that next great photo. Related, our Features Editor, Abby Ferguson, wrote about her strategies for overcoming a creative drought through innovative photo projects.

When I’m in an inspiration void, as cliché as it may sound, the first thing I grab is an extra-sized cup of coffee. If that doesn’t do it and the opportunity presents itself, I’ll take a good long walk outside during a thunderstorm or blizzard (it’s like a cold shower that snaps you out of your morning stupor – just more adventurous and unpredictable).

I think one of the problems we run into when we look for inspiration is that it can feel forced. We want it to go so well that we end up overplanning and causing a creative drought where there may not have been one at all. The importance of planning the next shot to make it great has even been called into question by several community members in our What’s in your bag? spotlight series.

So, with that said…

What do you do when your photography inspiration runs dry?

Drop a reply in the comments section below, and if you’ve got a photo to include from your mentioned forum sections, it may be selected for next week’s showcase article on this topic!

In a somewhat cryptic statement, Ricoh has said it is ending production of all current Pentax K-series DSLRs. However, it also says it will “continue to pursue the shooting style that is unique to SLR cameras.”

Ricoh says: “we will leverage the K-mount legacy that was built over more than half a century, to develop a new series of digital SLR cameras based on an entirely new concept,” but warns “it will take time for these products to come to life.”

It says it will provide updates as development continues.

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Alongside the new PEN camera, OM System has announced an upgrade to its 14-42mm (28-84mm equiv.) F3.5-5.6 standard zoom lens for Micro Four Thirds. Beyond being one of the kit options for the PEN, The M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 III is more protected from the elements than its predecessor, and can focus closer.

Like the II, the III is made up of eight elements in seven groups, with three aspherical lenses. However, that doesn’t mean it’ll perform exactly the same. OM System says it can now focus as close as 0.13m (5.1″) at the wide end, down from the 0.25m (9.8″) on its predecessor. This helps you get a little tighter, reproducing objects at up to 0.26x, where the previous lens maxed out at 0.19x. However, this minimum focusing distance does extend a bit as you zoom in, going up to 0.3m (11.8″) when you get to 42mm for 0.19x reproduction.

OM System

OM System also says it’s improved the weather resistance of the lens, with it now being IPX1 rated when paired with a dust and splash proof camera. While that’s the lowest tier of IP rating, only requiring a device to survive dripping water for 10 minutes, it’ll still provide a bit of peace of mind for anyone hoping to use it as a travel lens (though if you expect to encounter rain, it might be worth picking up the sold-separately lens hood to keep the front element clear).

The company also says that it’ll focus faster, and support the computational in-body focus stacking features found on many OM System cameras.

These changes have resulted in a lens that’s a touch heavier than its 112g (4oz) predecessor, as it now weighs 125g (4.4oz). It’s also slightly larger, with a 60mm diameter and being 51mm long. This also equates to it taking larger filters; 46mm rather than 37mm. However, it’s still quite a small lens for what it is, made smaller by its retracting design.

The OM System 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 III will be available in late October and retail for $350 standalone. However, we suspect it’ll be more popular as a kit lens for the new PEN, where you can get it for a $100 premium over the body-only price.

You can see several shots taken with the lens in our sample gallery for the OM System PEN.

OM System

OM System M. Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 III

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The OM System PEN is a compact, Micro Four Thirds camera built around a 20MP sensor and aimed at travel and everyday use. It riffs on the concept of the much-loved PEN series but delivers something a little distinct from its predecessors.

It’s not a like-for-like replacement for 2016’s PEN F, but it brings some of the ideas from that model to the more affordable end of the market.

Key specifications

• 20.4MP Four Thirds (226mm²) CMOS sensor
• In-body image stabilization rated to 5.5EV
• On-sensor phase detection focus with human and dog/cat recognition
• 2.36M dot EVF
• Up to 30fps shooting (with AF and AE locked), 8fps mech
• Multi-shot modes, including high resolution, Live ND, Live Bulb, Live Time, Live Composite
• 410 shot/charge battery life rating

The PEN is available now for around $1000, body-only. This is significantly lower than the $1200 launch price of the PEN-F back in 2016, especially once you consider that inflation makes that equivalent to around $1700 today.

Index

• What’s new
• How it compares
• Body and handling
• Autofocus
• Image quality
• Video
• In use
• Conclusion
• Sample gallery
• Specifications
• Press release

What’s new

The PEN is the first top-tier entry into the line in five years, and the first time in a decade that the series will be sold in North America. It’s essentially a blend of the two models that preceded it: primarily the mid-priced E-P7 but also the enthusiast PEN-F.

From the E-P7 it gets the lighter, lower-cost plastic construction, rather than the metal body that had marked out the ‘big’ PENs before it. It also inherits the two-position color mode switch on the front plate, and the simpler dial layout. But, crucially, from the PEN-F it gets an electronic viewfinder, built into the top corner of the body: making it only the second PEN model to feature one.

It also foregoes the stacked sensor features in the OM-1 and OM-3 models, presumably also in the name of cost reduction, meaning it has more in common with the OM-5 II.

The PEN’s color mode switch gives you access to eight color and mono modes that can be modified in interesting ways

These changes start to make sense when OM System talks about its target audience for the camera: a mixture of enthusiasts who want a small mirrorless camera and users looking to buy their first camera for travel and everyday photography.

The lower-cost construction and significant overlap with the OM-5 II’s componentry are reflected in its significantly lower launch price (there’s enough of a difference that it’s less expensive in money terms, despite a decade of inflation).

The ninth-generation TruePic processor means it gains more up-to-date autofocus than the PEN-F or E-P7 (now with Dogs & Cats recognition mode, rather than just human detection) but the camera is still limited to 8-bit video at up to 4K/30 and its multi-shot modes are less extensive and significantly slower than on more expensive stacked-sensor models such as the OM-3.

How it compares

There’s no direct competitor to the OM System PEN, if you’re looking for a small, rangefinder-style mirrorless camera. You can either opt for a similarly-priced APS-C model, such as the Fujifilm X-T30 III or Nikon Z50 II, but those are both SLR-styled models with no image stabilization. The alternative is the more expensive, metal-bodied X-E5, which is much more in keeping with the PEN’s styling but closer to the PEN-F market positioning, in terms of price.

Finally, if you just want a small, stylish camera and can live without the ability to change lenses, the Panasonic L10 comes into play.

Despite its more modest pricing, the PEN stacks up pretty reasonably against its peers, on paper. It’s interesting to note that you get the same viewfinder panel, regardless of how much you spend, because it’s the only one made in this smaller size. The PEN is the only camera in this cohort to offer a standardized rating of environmental protection, even if it is the relatively modest IPX1 level.

However, while the PEN’s multi-shot modes are more sophisticated than its (quasi) peers, its video is distinctly outdated. And, though it doesn’t necessarily show through in the specs, so are some aspects of its autofocus performance.

Body and handling

Richard Butler

The PEN feels pretty solid, despite its construction primarily being engineering plastics, rather than metal casing used from the E-P1 up to the PEN-F. The body gives the sense of being made of quite thick material, meaning it feels suitably weighty in the hand, without being overly heavy.

The small front grip and thumb rest make the camera easy to keep hold of, and we found the two (customizable) command dials to be well-placed, whether you’re holding the camera to your eye or not.

The back of the camera is somewhat cluttered, though, with a CP button (accessing your choice of Computational Photography modes) next to the thumb rest being just one of six buttons crammed into the right-hand control array, in addition to a small four-way controller that is also used to access key features. In the absence of an AF joystick, this four-way controller, along with the camera’s touchscreen, becomes the main method for positioning the AF point.

Richard Butler

The PEN still has a single SD card slot, somehow still only supporting UHS-I cards. Its USB connector has been modernized to a Type C socket, but the underlying interface is still a distinctly dated 480Mbps USB-2.0 type. There’s also a micro HDMI port and a mic input, but there’s no headphone socket for audio monitoring, which should give a pretty clear signal about the PEN’s focus.

As with the OM-5 II, the PEN does not support the excellent little FL-LM3 rotatable, bouncable flash, which is no longer made. However, there are alternatives such as Godox’s iT30 and iT32/X5 combinations that provide small, flexible options.

Viewfinder

Richard Butler

The PEN becomes only the second model in the series to feature a built-in viewfinder. It’s the same 2.36M dot (1024 x 768px) finder as in the PEN-F, ten years ago. It’s worth noting, though, that this is the highest resolution finder made in the smaller 0.39″ format, which is why we continue to see it appear in cameras where size is the key focus of the design.

Screen

The rear screen is the same, fully-articulated 1.04M dot touchscreen that featured on the PEN-F. This is likely to divide audiences, with some people interpreting flip-out screens as being a sop to video shooters. However, we’ve been told by multiple manufacturers that, in surveys, about 50% of photographers prefer this screen arrangement. So, while street and candid shooters are likely to miss the tilting screen that allows more discreet camera operation, the wider target audience, looking to use the PEN for travel, are likely to appreciate the ability to fold the screen inwards, to keep it protected.

Battery

Richard Butler

The PEN uses a new battery pack, the rather compact BLS-7, it’s a 7.74V, 1285mAh unit, which means it has a capacity of 10Wh, rather than the 8.7Wh of the older, physically larger BLS-50 or the 9.0Wh of the PEN F’s BLN-1.

OM System says this delivers a battery rating of 400 shots per charge, when tested using the standard CIPA method, presumably based on the use of the more power-efficient rear screen. As usual, these ratings tend to significantly underestimate the real-world endurance of a battery, and getting twice the rated number is pretty common, depending on how you shoot.

In use

The PEN’s operation will be immediately familiar to OM System (and Olympus) users, though potentially somewhat overwhelming to most newcomers. For instance, the barrage of icons and settings displayed when you turn the camera on includes L8 in large letters at the top right of the screen, indicating that if you press the REC button on the top of the camera, you’ll get 8-bit video in a Long Group-of-Frames codec. Which doesn’t feel like essential information in stills mode, on a fairly stills-focused camera that can only capture 8-bit video.

Still, once you’ve learned your way around the screen, you’ll probably come to appreciate the Super Control Panel: a settings display showing most of the camera’s key settings in an interactive array. Tap on the setting you want to change, spin one of the command dials and you’ll find you have semi-quick access to just about all the settings you might want to change. Which makes me wonder if the camera needs quite as many buttons as it has. But still…

Six of the camera’s buttons are customizable, plus the button on any lens that has one. Alternatively, you can give up two of your custom buttons (and the ISO button) and dedicate the four-way controller to give direct AF point control, rather than having to press ‘left’ first. Buttons can be customized to have a different function in video or Slow & Quick modes, too.

This degree of customization extends to the dials, whose function can be dictated per exposure mode, and again, separately for stills and video. Likewise, once you’ve worked out which of the camera’s computational photography modes you actually use, you can narrow the function of the CP button to only invoke those.

Richard Butler

The menus are relatively easy to navigate, with a decent degree of signposting, meaning you’ll quickly get a feel for where different types of setting are likely to live. However the number of options and the level of customization is extensive, bordering on the excessive, so things can seem a little intimidating, initially.

Like the more recent OM cameras, the PEN’s ‘film’ color modes, selected with the switch on the front of the body, can have the saturation levels of different hues adjusted, to tailor their response. You can also tweak the highlights, shadows and mid-tone response, giving you a lot of flexibility. This comes especially handy in conjunction with the in-camera Raw conversion feature, as it means you can make very specific adjustments to your images while still using the camera’s choice of attractive JPEG modes.

In keeping with the camera’s attempt to attract first-time camera users, the PEN has a series of Scene modes on its dial. These cover a decent range of common shooting scenarios and are able to invoke the multi-shot modes, if needs be. But we’re still not sure how many people will buy a dedicated camera, only to use restrictive preset modes that are less clever and flexible than the ones on their phones.

In-camera Raw conversion

Most brands offer in-camera Raw conversion at this point, but OM Systems’ remains one of the most comprehensive and powerful. This is especially useful on a camera designed with travel in mind, where you may want to be able to share the things you’ve seen without wanting to boot up your laptop.

OM System’s JPEG color, particularly its Neutral and Film modes can deliver really attractive results, so it’s nice to be able to tweak and exploit these, rather than trying to match them in a 3rd-party Raw converter.

The camera gives you a choice of simply applying your current settings to an Raw file, or defining two presets, so that your preferences are saved or can be applied to multiple images from a batch. There are a few awkward inconsistencies, though: the camera’s standard color modes let you adjust hightlights, shadows and midtones from within the conversion interface, the Film modes don’t, and instead take their highlights, shadows and midtones settings, along with any hue-specific saturation adjustments you’ve made to them, from the camera’s current settings, even if you’re trying to use a preset.

This means that you can, for instance, make WB fine-tune modifications or adjustments of the film modes that aren’t in the Raw conversion interface by changing the camera’s current settings, but it means applying the result, backing out of the converter, adjusting the camera’s settings, then trying again: meaning making iterative adjustments can be quite frustrating.

This doesn’t give the near infinite level of flexibility that, say, Panasonic’s LUT-based image processing does, but means you don’t have to mess around with exploring and downloading profiles: you can just tweak the already pleasant in-camera options.

Autofocus

The PEN uses the standard OM System AF interface, which gives you a choice of 6 AF point sizes, from small to covering the entire area over which the camera can focus. The smallest size isn’t especially small and can be moved to one of 121 positions, which puts a limit on the maximum level of precision you can achieve.

Human or Pet recognition can be engaged on top of this system. However, unlike most cameras, recognized subjects are prioritized over your AF point. So if the camera thinks it recognizes a subject, it’ll focus on that, irrespective of where you’ve asked it to focus. If there’s more than one subject in the frame, your chosen focus point will dictate which subject it should focus on. There’s a menu setting to specify whether the camera prioritizes recognized subjects or your AF point (and you can assign the AF-On and shutter button behaviors differently), but if you choose to prioritize your chosen AF point, subject recognition is completely ignored: it won’t focus on an eye or face where you’re asking it to focus.

Richard Butler

In practice, we found both recognition modes quite prone to false positives and that they’d try to focus on irrelevant subjects. Which is a particular problem, given that recognized subjects override your chosen focus point. Between these two factors, it becomes essential to position your AF point precisely (made a little more frustrating on a camera without an AF joystick), and to have a means of disengaging or over-riding the subject recognition system. It’s eminently usable, once you’ve got a feel for how it works, but it’s nothing like as effortless as the best modern cameras that simply focus where you ask them and then utilize subject recognition when appropriate.

The PEN’s general AF tracking system (for subjects the camera hasn’t been trained to recognize) feels pretty dated and significantly less sticky or dependable than its peers. We’ve become used to leaving cameras in tracking mode, selecting a target and recomposing at will, which isn’t something we’d recommend doing with the PEN. Other than a few shots where flare and bright highlights seemed to have confused the AF system, we were able to get a solid hit rate with the PEN, but don’t expect it to be action-ready and do be prepared to have to make more interventions to get the result you want.

Image quality

As you might expect, and as already seemed to be the case from the day-to-day shooting we conduct as part of every review, the PEN’s performance is a match for that of the OM-5 Mark II, with which it shares a sensor and processor. Our studio scene confirms this to a very fine degree.

Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors, and detail types you’ll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes, full even light and low directional light, to see the effect of different lighting conditions.

Its 20MP sensor captures a good level of detail (our test scene gives a slight benefit to 4:3 aspect ratio cameras, reducing the already minor difference between the PEN and the 24MP of the Canon EOS R10). In terms of noise the PEN’s performance is a little behind the larger sensor of the Nikon Z50II, but it’s not significantly noisier than the Canon, whose 1.6x crop sensor seems to slightly underperform expectations.

The PEN’s performance is entirely in keeping with what we’d expect to see from a modern sensor, backing up the results we got when shooting its sample gallery. We’ve already seen that the JPEG engine can produce a range of attractive results and these confirm that the technical underpinnings are sound.

As with all formats, there’s a fairly direct size / image quality trade-off being struck, meaning you lose something in terms of peak image quality in order for the camera to be able to maintain its travel-friendliness, even when you take lenses into account.

For many people, that’ll be a trade-off worth making: the use of a Four Thirds sensor defines both the upper limit of its image quality, but also how small the camera/lens combinations can be. So while some manufacturers are focused on trying to make smaller cameras built around larger sensors, there’s a physical limit to how small the appropriate lenses can be, meaning you’re likely to carefully pick and choose to keep the package small, and you’ll need to revert to larger setups to attain their full IQ potential.

Richard Butler

The hand-held high resolution mode, that shots a series of shots in e-shutter mode, then combines them, in-camera, means it’s possible to boost the PEN’s image quality a little for select shots of relatively static subjects, and the tripod-based high-res mode, which is able to precisely position the sensor for optimal alignment, does an even better job. Both take a long time to process, but are nice to have in your back pocket, when the situation suits.

Video

Video is perhaps the most glaringly outdated aspect of the PEN, with the camera limited to 8-bit capture and topping out at 4K/30. There’s also no headphone socket, so no way of monitoring audio, when you’re recording, which risks you getting back to your computer and finding that distracting noises or incorrect recording levels have rendered your footage unusable.

The PEN can capture video using the OM Log400 curve, which offers some additional flexibility, in terms of tonal adjustment and color grading, but it’s limited, to say the least, in an era where 10-bit Log is pretty much standard. On the plus side, you can apply almost all of the camera’s color modes and even Art filters to your video, if you want distinctive-looking footage, straight out of camera.

There’s an S&Q (Slow and Quick) position on the power/mode switch but the available options are limited by the camera’s relatively modest video speeds. You can capture 1080 footage at up to 120 frames per second, for 1/5th-speed slow-mo.

Between the modest spec and less-than-dependable autofocus performance in video, the PEN wouldn’t be on our list if we were recommending a camera for someone looking to shoot a lot of video. Its strengths lie much more on the photography side of the spec sheet, so we would have preferred that the video mode wasn’t given such a prominent position on the power switch.

Conclusion

The OM System PEN is a delightful combination of size, capability and price. It’s not especially cutting-edge nor quite as easy to use as it wants to be, but it still succeeds in being engaging to operate, easy to carry with you and able to deliver attractive results at a price that seems eminently reasonable. It’s a combination that the rest of the industry seems to have forgotten how to deliver.

Richard Butler

Its autofocus isn’t as sophisticated as that of its peers. It can’t track subjects moving around the scene as well as its contemporaries, nor can it react to fast movement as reliably, and between the way it operates and how dependable it is, its subject recognition modes require more user input than on other cameras. And yet, for the kinds of everyday and travel photography we expect the PEN to be used for, this isn’t a fundamental concern.

Richard Butler

No, the PEN isn’t as seemingly effortlessly capable as some other mirrorless cameras can feel, and its comfort zone is somewhat narrower than theirs. But set the four-way controller to position the AF point and have a button to toggle subject recognition on and off and it’ll do most of what you ask of it, because no one is expecting the PEN to ‘turn its hand to a bit of sports and action shooting.’

Richard Butler

The PEN’s sensor size means it’s at its best during the daytime, but balanced on the other side of the fulcrum is the ability to offer small lens/body combinations for a range of activities. With the 12mm F2, 17mm F1.8, Panasonic 20mm F1.7 or 45mm F1.8, you can maintain a compact form factor with a high degree of portability that arguably only Fujfilm’s rather more expensive X-E5 comes near to. And the multi-shot modes will let you boost the camera’s image quality for relatively static scenes.

Experienced OM System users will welcome the ability to customize much of the camera’s operation, while newcomers may feel intimidated at first. Most of it can be safely ignored at first, and learned when you want to optimize the camera’s behavior (though we’d recommend engaging 0 sec Anti-Shock, straight out of the box).

The PEN can be the kind of travel companion that you will, on occasion, find somewhat irritating. The kind that sometimes won’t always do exactly what you want to do. But also the kind that you’re so glad you took with you. And with whom you’ll create memories you wouldn’t otherwise get to keep.

Scoring

Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.

8.5 out of 10

8.6 out of 10

9.2 out of 10

7.8 out of 10

8.5 out of 10

8.2 out of 10

7.7 out of 10

8.0 out of 10

8.3 out of 10

7.2 out of 10

7.8 out of 10

9.2 out of 10

Show all scores

Overall score

84%

Scores reflect competition at the time of release; cross-year comparisons may be misleading

Expert summary

The OM System PEN is both charming and quirky. Some of its technology and performance is a little dated but this is reflected in its price. Overall it offers a level of image quality, usability and portability that no one else seems to have thought to offer.

Good for:

Travel, Everyday photography

Not so good for:

Sports, Action, Video

Reviewed on October 6, 2026

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OM System PEN specifications