Singapore – Mark McMahon

Welcome to he Pentax 120SW – a tiny do-everything-for-you point-and-shoot from right at the time where everyone started buying digital cameras. To test this camera out, I decided to explore the Gardens by the Bay area of Singapore to see if I could experience the wonder of nature.

The Wonder of Nature

I think you can probably guess that the byline of the above video is somewhat sarcastic. Gardens by the Bay is as natural as a terra-formed Mars colony, with microclimate pods nestled among metal trees, all in the shadow of Marina Bay Sands hotel.

Most of the nature exploration involved photographing the topography and the tourists that milled around the area – wildlife of sorts, I suppose, just not the normal fodder for a David Attenborough documentary.

Using a mix of Ilford HP5 and Kodak Colorplus 200, I nevertheless put on my virtual pith helmet, strapped on my scythe and cut a swathe through the metal and concrete forests of Gardens by the Bay.

About the Pentax Espio 120SW

Well what’s to say? It’s a point and shoot.

It has a 28-120mm F5.6-12.8 lens, 6 elements in 5 groups, autofocus with focus lock, and with a minimum focus of 0.5m. It’s shutter speeds are from 2-1/360s and it has a bulb mode that’s 1/2s-1min though if it came with a remote shutter, I don’t have one so I’m not sure how useful bulb really is.

Like many point-and-shoots, this one is small and it’s light. It weighs 190 gr. without battery.

That, and it’s sweet sexy looks ,are probably it’s main attractions. Apparently, other than the film door it has an aluminium body. I don’t know though. It tastes like plastic to me. I don’t know how much this cost either but it was definitely positioned at the ‘luxury’ end of Pentax’s plastic point and shoot lineup.

in 2001 it won the Technical Image Press Association’s compact camera of the year award. But given those times, it’s probably like winning ‘Best new DSLR’ in 2023 when the whole world has gone mirrorless. You do get a really pretty orange backlight on the LCD though.

One of the problems is that it’s a Pentax. This was a company that churned out compact camera models like barbecue sausages and it’s not like there was ever much cachet in owning one. I have several Pentax point-and-shoots in my cupboard. I also have a few broken ones now hidden in draws that I might sell on ebay some time labelled ‘top mint’ but with ‘please read’ asterisked and in small print.

The fact is that there were so many camera versions, some good, some bad. How do you know if you’ve got a decent one?

Well you may have already made up your mind on this one but I think to make an accurate judgement, it’s only fair that I use some of that money I’ve been saving up for my kids education and blow it on a roll of colour film. Seriously, the things I do for science. And nature … obviously. Now this was Kodak Ultramax. Still a fast film at ISO400 but still a challenge for such a small aperture zoom on a cloudy day. BUT if Livingstone could conquer Everest with nothing but a woolly bobble hat and a block of Kendal mint cake then I could take on the challenge of Marina Bay with my trusty Pentax. Actually I might have got some of that detail wrong but that’s what happens when you trust Chat GPT to write your reviews for you.

A Slow-Lensed Camera

The Pentax Espio 120SW is perhaps not the best camera out there in terms of specifications and it doesn’t have a full array of modes and features. There’s no portrait, sport mode or dedicated macro facility here. You really have very little control.

You do get 25-3200 ISO, automatic DX coding, self-timer, automatic film advance, infinity and spot AF modes.

And for what it is, it’s capable of producing great results. It can meet the resolution of film and my favourite photos show that this has a lens that can be both sharp and contrasty. I didn’t really see much flare either thanks to it’s ‘super multi coating’.

If you use it properly it delivers good results. Unfortunately I bet back in the day there are a lot of people who have used this camera and wondered why the images came out blurry. That probably comes down to the lens. It has a maximum aperture of f/5.6 at 28mm down to f/12.8 at 120mm. That makes it tighter than the proverbial cat’s anus, though I haven’t actually done that test myself and I don’t know any proverbial feline proctologists.

You only get a focus confirmation or a warning light to tell you to use flash in the viewfinder and that’s not much feedback. It’s definitely capable at 120mm as shown here but where my shots failed it was usually because I was being overly optimistic of my ability to hand hold. Even with 400ISO, a dull day in Singapore meant that telephoto and slow shutter speeds conspired to give me soft results. Don’t bother putting 100 speed film in this unless you’re prepared to shoot with the flash turned on.

But it’s Sharp

On a sunny day like we have here in Australia I still managed to get great results. Finishing the colour roll, I was able to get really vivid photos like this.

Admittedly, I might have underdeveloped a bit, which often gives colours, contrast and grain a bit of a boost but if you look here, you can see that it produces pleasing images.

As with any example of this kind of camera, though, you have to accept a certain randomness in the results it produces. There was no way I could tell the camera where to focus in this photo and while having the ability to at least spot focus fix on infinity focus is nice, the end results can be a bit unpredictable depending on the film or quality of light. I wasn’t really able to get it to produce any bokeh but that’s hardly surprising. I could get some subject separation if I shot close up and what I did see in the out of focus areas wasn’t ugly. It just wasn’t particularly distinctive.

So what’s your experience with cameras like this? Have you owned this particular model and what do you think of it? Some point and shoots can be ridiculously overpriced these days. I’m looking at you Olympus Mju II.

If you’re prepared to slum it at the ugly end of the Pentax range, though, you might find a bargain. There are definitely hidden gems out there if you are prepared to be patient.

But let me know your thoughts. From my perspective, if not the best tool for the job, this camera isn’t the worst. And like your phone it’ll give you a photographic experience that you can put in your pocket; just with this one, it’s actual film.

My advice, though, use a FAST film so you can make the most of the sharpness of the lens stopped down and give you a bit ore leeway with hand holding. Or use flash, which on these things is… ‘a look’ and who knows? Maybe one I’ll experiment with a bit more on a future review.

What is the Perkeo?

The word perkeo means pygmy and while probably neither of these terms are very politically correct, those were different times and I don’t think the pygmy hippopotamus is going to sue my YouTUBE channel for being sizist.

Still, it’s small, it’s cute, it unfolds and in that sense it’s a delight. This particular camera had been gathering dust for a while before being gifted to me by someone who’d been following my photography. I’ve had this for around six years now and I have used it well.

Most recently I found myself in Singapore for work and I had the option of either settling into another round of tiger beer with colleagues or taking the Perkeo with me for a brief walk from Bugis to Little India. I had two rolls of Ilford HP5 pushed to ISO 1600 and a fierce determination to find interesting subjects and pockets of light to illuminate them.

One of the cool things about Singapore is the different styles and cultures you can find in such a small area. It was just a short train ride from Promenade to Bugis Junction, where the stark modernity of Marina Bay gave way to a much more human and slightly chaotic street culture.

About the Camera

So what about the Voigtlander Perkeo 1? As the name suggests, this was the first version of the camera – it was superseded by the Perkeo 2 and the Perkeo E. There were over 100,000 copies of the Perkeo 1 made and there were a few iterations. This particular version came with some tweaks to the original, such as the ability to close off the red frame advance window and a clever automatic locking mechanism to prevent double exposure.

So far that’s two rounds to Voigtlander against my human error but unfortunately it’s not a foolproof camera. It’s fiddly. Firstly, this is manual medium format camera. No surprises there. It dates back to the early 1950s when 120 film was the dominant format. So, larger roll film that can be a bit annoying to load in and out but you do end up with those gorgeous 6×6 square medium format negatives.

Capturing images on that film, though, can be a bit challenging. Most of the cool stuff sits on the lens. That’s because it has a leaf shutter built into it rather than a cloth or metal mechanism at the focal plane. The good side of that is that you have everything available right there and the flash can synchronise at every shutter speed. The bad side is that you find yourself having to make micro-adjustments with your fingernails for the shutter speed and aperture.

The shutter speed ranges from 1/250th to 1/25th of a second, or not very fast to not very slow, though it does have a bulb mode that you can use if you want to put it on a tripod. The aperture range goes from a not too small f/16 to a not very wide f/4.5.

I wouldn’t worry about the lack of wide aperture. One of the quirks of medium format is that because of the physical image size, for a given focal length you end up a with a commensurately narrower depth of field. That’s not just true of film. The sensor of your full-frame 35mm camera allows you to obtain that creamy bokeh in ways that your iPhone just can’t because of the miniscule chip inside it. Trust me, it’s all about physics. That or phases of the moon working on the tides, which in turn are making a butterfly in China flap its wings.

In any case, f/1.8 would be impractical here. If it opened up wider than around f/3.5 then the focal plane would be perilously thin. And that’s made worse because you have no focusing aids in the camera. You have to rely on your ability to judge distance … in feet since this is basically a relic of the imperial system.

For a camera like this, f/4.5 is probably about as wide as you can go while still being able to make sure your point of focus will be sharp. So don’t worry about the lack of wide aperture.

And I do say that but of course I was shooting at night. And I soon found out that the further away from Bugis I got, the deader and darker the streets became. Fortunately I’m a brave boy and armed with another roll of Ilford HP5, I tried to squeeze a final few frames before heading home.

What about the Results?

As you can probably guess from those photos, while I made my way to the Little India MRT, the opportunities thinned out just as the people did.

Overall I didn’t come away with lots of portfolio shots. I think the better shots were the ones that had people in them. I did hang around a couple of locations for people to walk by and in some cases, that took a long time.

And I’m not very patient. So apologies that instead of a fascinating street character, you end up with some random dude carrying a plastic shopping bag. Though I did find the poses of the people inside the building intriguing, if a little baffling.

But none of these photos are going to get me into Magnum. It was possibly a combination of the weeknight evening and my desperation to cram some creativity into a busy work schedule that’s to blame. And while shooting film at night with a nearly 70 year old camera was always going to be a challenge, I can’t really blame the technology.

Why I love the Voigtlander Perkeo.

In decent light, the Perkeo didn’t let me down at all. It’s sharp where it needs to be but still gives a nice characterful low contrast look that mitigates some of the issues of shooting ISO 1600. The fact that it’s medium format means the grain isn’t so noticeable and of course you do get that 3d pop when you shoot something fairly close wide open.

It has travelled the world with me, from Vancouver to Dubai, Estonia to Hangzhou. In fact I dropped it on the ground in Amsterdam once, leaving lovely big dent in the lens cover. Seriously, I don’t deserve good things.

It’s small but substantial, weighing in at 525g and if you’re patient enough to use an external meter and are comfortable with the square format, it takes some great shots. Even if you’re like me and too lazy to use a tripod or meter for exposure you can get good pictures from it – you just have to accept that not every photo is going to be a keeper.

So have you used one of these? If not, then it’s definitely worth seeking one out. I have a couple of other folding cameras – an Agfa Isolette and an even older Voigtlander Bessa that produces amazing 6×9 negatives, but this is probably the sweet spot in terms of size, quality and yes, even ease of use.

Perhaps not the greatest low light camera in the world but a gem nonetheless.

Mark McMahon

Tag: Singapore

Finding Nature in Singapore with a Pentax Espio 120SW Point-and-Shoot