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 rewind make it a true grab-and-go machine. At just 208g and measuring 110 × 63 × 46mm, it slips easily into a coat pocket or glovebox.

This camera doesn’t compete with DSLRs—it doesn’t need to. It’s a reminder that beauty often lives in imperfection, and that sometimes, the best lens is the one you have in your hand. The Espio 120mi doesn’t just take pictures—it captures the mood, the texture, the light between moments.

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Sources: Camera-Wiki¹, Kamerastore²