Pentax Espio 120mi
Through This Window : A £1.50 Pentax and the Poetry of Film The Pentax Espio 120mi isn’t a marvel of modern engineering—but that’s precisely its appeal. A compact 35mm point-and-shoot camera from the late 1990s, it was built for spontaneity, not spectacle. I found mine in a charity shop for £1.50, loaded it with Ilford HP5 Plus, and let it wander. Despite its humble price, the Espio 120mi is no toy. It features a 38–120mm f/4.8–12.5 zoom lens constructed from 7 elements in 6 groups, offering a versatile range from wide to short telephoto. The autofocus system uses a passive 5-point array, locking focus from 0.65m to infinity, aided by a low-light assist lamp. Exposure is fully automatic, with a shutter speed range from 2 seconds to 1/400s and DX-coded ISO support from 25 to 3200. It’s equipped with a built-in flash, red-eye reduction, backlight compensation, and a 10-second self-timer. Panorama mode crops the frame for a cinematic sweep, while the automatic film loading, advance, and r...
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