The Pentax Espio 738 is a 35mm film camera of the mid-range series. It was
first released in 1995 when the digital market was not yet a consumer market.
It has a moderate zoom that covers 38-70mm in a relatively small body. There was a black version, a date version and later a 738G and a 738S. Its main features are:
38-70mm F4.8-8.5 lens, 5 elements in 5 groups, autofocus with focus lock, min. focus 0,55m Electronic shutter, 1/320-1/3, 1/2-5min (!) bulb mode Size 120x69.5x55.5, Weight 320 gr. without battery 25-1600
ISO, automatic DX coding, self-timer, automatic film advance, self timer
Camera
front closed.
Camera
back. Viewer with one LED for flash and AF. Wide/Tele lever. Film type window.
Camera front open. The flash is set automatically. Flash
guide number ~18 (m/ISO 100). The lens moves automattically to 38mm. The lens set to wide position, 38mm.
Lens moved out to its tele position.
View from above. On/Off button. LCD
screen. Flash, red eye, self timer and mid roll rewind buttons. Shutter
release. Wide/Tele lever. View from below. Tripod socket. Battery compartment, takes a CR123 battery.
Film compartment.
A black version with its original pouch.
Front.
This
camera is easy to use.
Autofocus is responsive and works well. Putting a film is easy as well,
you drop the film, tear the film leader up to the mark and that's it. The
camera winds it automatically. It has some manual settings if needed,
the menu is very easy to access on a big clear LCD screen.
The picture are sharp, but there are later Pentax compacts which are much better with more luminous lenses. It's
a very good point and shoot camera
with a moderate wide angle zoom lens, good picture quality, nice
finish in a pocketable body which is slightly bigger than other
cameras. It sets the flash on from
start and there is no general flashoff mode, but a night mode and a
backlight compensation mode. The night flash
off mode gives access to impressing long shutter times, up to 5
minutes! The backlight compensation flash off mode works quite well as
flash off in case of.
A nice camera, but as I said, Pentax made better models later, as they stayed in the film camera market well into the 2000s.
