Tony Kemplen on the... Pentax Espio Mini

A pocketable 35mm compact with a fixed 32mm lens, found in a charity shop

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Pentax produced a number of 35mm compact zoom cameras under the Espio name.

The series kicked off in 1991 with the Espio 70, and gradually the specifications and size increased, culminating in some alarmingly ambitious zoom ranges. These were pretty much unusable at their longest focal length owing to the very small apertures, which in turn demanded a slow shutter speed, not amenable to hand-held shots. At the height of this hubris came the Espio 200, which the schoolboy in me can't help sniggering at, as the lens slowly but surely emerges from the body to its absurd 200mm maximum.