Pentax P30n

My sixth SLR in my 12 months of film project and February's choice is the Pentax P30n. If you would like to know what I've used so far in the five previous months and get an overview of what this series is all about click on the link, http://brettgardnerphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/12-months-of-film.html

The Pentax P30n was first issued in 1988 and for me just about holds on to the good looks of the classic film SLR's from previous decades. I say this because as they approached the Nineties a great deal of manufacturer's cameras became ugly blobs of plastic and quite frankly looked pretty hideous. Certain unsightly design cues were starting to creep into the looks of the P30n. Like the rubberised grip on the right side of the camera with P30 emblazoned right down the front and the recessed  top mounted dials which do nothing for a cameras looks. Saying that, I do really like the look of this camera for some reason. It pulls the Eighties look off quite well, something I don't think the Canon T50 and T70 models of the same decade manage in the slightest.  The P30n is a full manual SLR which can also be used in aperture priority mode. It has a maximum shutter speed of 1/1000 sec with a bulb mode also available. The camera uses DX coding to set the film speeds and there is no way of setting this manually. If a film without DX coding is loaded then the camera will automatically select a film speed of 100. The body is made of a hardened plastic but is reasonably solid to the touch and it's a great little camera to hold and operate feeling pleasingly tactile. The film advance lever is positive and the shutter fires with a nice crisp snap offering better dampening than older cameras like the Zenit TTL from last months post. A nice bright viewfinder allows easy composition and focusing and the lens on this particular camera had a nice feel, allowing easy and smooth focusing. The P30n uses two LR44 or equivalent batteries which is great because these are still easy to buy and cheap.

Front view of the Pentax P30n

Rear view

Top view showing the film advance lever, speed dial, film rewind dial and on/off switch

The Pentax M f1.7 lens. You can also clearly see the recessed dials on the top plate

So what was the camera like to shoot with? Well, rather lovely as it turned out. As I mentioned above it feels good in the hand, has a good clear viewfinder with a quality lens and a nice crisp shutter snap coupled with a great feeling film advance lever.

The images from the camera are great. Using a cheap Agfa Vista 200 film as used with the other cameras so far in this project, the colours are good, images sharp with some great grain structure. My favourite image taken with this camera and roll of film is the top one, 'Hello Mr Horse'. It just has a great feel to it which is really difficult to capture with digital, especially when shooting towards the sun.

I hope you can come back and visit the site in a month's time, (if not before) as I start the second half of the '12 month's of film project'. See you then.

Hello Mr Horse

Two Horses

Fishing boxes

Old Anchor 

CL-PUP