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So, since I really don't like the bulkiness of the gooey Canon EOS 3000v film camera - and the Konica Hexar AF just died on me - i decided to look out for, and ultimately buy a relative affordable, flexible compact camera. Based on analogue film, of course.
Party Time
Think: Out and about with folks. Party time ! Fun Time. *snap*snap*snap* And the reward are real, physical negatives in a world obsessed with digital - made up with virtual 0's and 1's.
Sometimes just gone in a flash. Forever (or let's say, too fast for my taste). Who has still digital images left on their phones from 15 years ago ? How many times have you lost them accidentally - can you count ?
Pentax ESPIO 120 SW
I thought the 28mm wide angle would be brighter - yet I was mistaken and didn't see that until I already had ordered it from Japan. So, it is a zoom lens, apparently very sharp and not much vignetting (which if true, would be a bit unusual). But - it is also a very slow lens - one with a rather long reach if desired. (Not my thing really). I am mainly interested into the wideangle area of 28 to 35mm.
The lens goes from a modestly dark aperture of ƒ 5.6 to a whopping dark ƒ 12.8 aperture... (The zoom extends at the 120 mm position, like a snake 9 cm outwards from the camera) I guess I'll use the camera directly with an ISO 400 film, like Kodak T-MAX 400 or Ilford XP2 400). It makes up for for the ƒ 5.6 aperture.
Also let's say - that this is mainly a daylight, summer snap shot camera. And of course, a "party" camera (using flash light). I love the idea of that. A snap-shot camera with "everything essential included" (more or less).
I pay in total $124: $70 for the camera, $30 is for shipping, and $24 for the Swedish Tax of 25%.
Taxes... and stuff
Little bit of used camera, attached to big tax cookies, paid with additionally already taxed money. Funny business we maintain in this world of ours, on top taking it so damn for granted that tax is OK.
Tax for what really ? 
For "Elite" criminal cocksuckers; war and weapons.  Sorry if i sound excessively cynical - but that's where our taxes increasingly go to these days (or more than ever before in Sweden's modern history). And it is also a fact, for EU-Europe at large, and the US in particularly. How much is it ? 1000 Billion Dollars every year. For what is in essence war games, call it what ever you want - but that is what it is.
Every 100 days: 1 trillion dollar more in debt
It takes the US just a mere 100 days (!), to increase the national debt by an additional 1000 billion dollars (=1 trillion dollar). That is insane of course. It is also one hell of a telling story
Which ultimately will fail... and fall.
Pentax Espio 120 camera
Boy, that looks rather tiny. I hope not too tiny...
The camera specs
Body
Made of aluminum, in my case "dark Navy", instead of silver.
Made for 35mm film (24x36 mm neg.), released in 2001
Lens
6 elements in 5 groups,
Wide: 28 mm ƒ 5.6
Tele: 120 mm ƒ 12.8
Autofocus
with focus lock, active autofocus.
Infinity-landscape mode (focus is fixed to infinity) [great !!],
AF illuminator is automatically emitted in low light / or hard-to-autofocus subject.
Film loading
• Auto film loading. Closing the back cover will automatically wind the film to first exposure.
• Auto film winding (single - frame)
• Auto film rewinding at the end of roll. Auto stop upon completion of rewinding.
Rewinding time: approx. 25 sec with 24 - exposure film. Rewinding in mid - roll provided. [Nice !]
Focus down to ?
min. focus 0.5 m
Electronic shutter
Programmed AE electronic shutter with speed approx. 1/360s - 2 sec.
Bulb Mode
1/2s - 1 min bulb mode (1 minute is highly unusual, if true)
Otherwise:
• 25-3200 ISO automatic DX coding, films without DX are likely treated like ISO 25
• self-timer
• automatic film advance
• infinity mode and
• spot AF mode, • self timer, and u
• Uses one CR2 battery
• auto compensation in backlit situations [most likely by using flash in daylight towards a person, in order to make it brighter ?]
I looked at quite many different compact cameras...
and stopped close
at the Olympus XA and XA-4 models - which play in a special league of compact cameras. But ultimately i decided for the Pentax Espio 120 SW camera, because i liked the rendering in the images I have seen, rather evenly as well sharp.
Again; i wish for an allround, compact camera, that does or can do everything auto when needed. A fun-pack camera. And here i thought the price was right, sharpness was good, and menu's easily accessible. That's enough. If i wish to do more serious photography - i immediately would either use the Canon EOS 1V, (large, heavy, chunky) or the graceful, robust and reliable Leica M6.
However. That is not my aim.
A little Companion
I wish to add to my big Fujifilm GFX 50s II mediumformat camera, also a neat little "snapshot" film camera. That is what I really desire and have done so for quite some time (read; many years). The truth to be told - I didn't even have such a camera for a very long time. Even the now dead Konica Hexar AF is/was quite chunky (bigger) - and I wouldn't call it a "compact camera". It is more like an automatic AF "Leica" camera, with fixed lens from the early 90s.
Last time i used a typical small, everywhere-to-go camera - was the Konica Big Mini BG-302 camera from 1992-1994 - which i won like many of them, every time i got one of the first prizes in a Photo Magazine in Germany (which in total were like 7 of them in total).
Pentax afterall 
Kind of funny after turning down the idea of buying the € 570 / 6800 SEK brand new (half-format) Pentax 17 - - it still turned out into .... a Pentax camera. *LOL*
I didn't do that on purpose, though.
To be honest, i had no clue what model to choose - if i had to choose one. There are so many film compact cameras - yet I am not well versed about them. Just the larger picture of brand and models - but not the many "lesser" models.
Doesn't have to be good at everything
This kind of camera doesn't have to be good at everything. Or that it needs to have many features. It is really just meant to be a camera i can stick into my bag with the Fujifilm GFX 50s II camera, giving me the option to take analog images "on-the-fly". As well having an included flash for "bang-on-portraits", the kind of memory images you would take with a Polaroid camera with flash, you know. |
