Pentax Espio Conundrum

[melangeatrois]

I'm hoping somebody here on RFF can help me with a hopefully not-so-silly question regarding the Pentax Espio I picked up at a Goodwill two days ago.

The Espio has a sticker on it that says "Panorama" and has the viewfinder lines for panorama. But how the heck do you turn panorama on? I'm not a huge user of panorama functions, but I like this little camera and would like to know how to use all of the functions on it. I've owned plenty of other cameras that had this feature, but there was a designated switch for it somewhere on the camera. My Espio Mini has one, as does my Oly Stylus Epic.

I found the identical camera on butkus.org and read the manual, but no mention of panorama whatsoever.. and the diagrams of the viewfinder in the manual showed no panorama lines, either. Other than the panorama, appearance and function/button layout are identical to the image in the Pentax Espio manual. What gives?

The camera (or the one I'm thinking it is) is this Pentax Espio, but the camera itself says "Espio / AF Zoom / 35-70mm / Full Macro / Pentax."

Am I missing a message from Captain Obvious on this one?

 

[melangeatrois]

Sad Solution

Sad Solution

After my other half exercised some rather excellent Google skills, I was directed to a Japanese manual for the Espio. It has no button for toggling the panorama because panorama is achieved by placing a mask inside the camera. Oh well. I'm still extremely happy with my find, albeit a bit disappointed. And really? A mask? C'mon, Pentax!

Has anyone else used this particular model? Any opinions on its performance?

 

[btgc]

I'm missing which Espio you own, and Espio is family name like Mju or Epic. Is the model you own with 35-70 lens? Say, Espio Mini (UC-1) has sliding switch left to viewfinder, used to move mask inside film chamber.

Placing mask by hands isn't as elegant as switch control but let's find a sunbeam here - there's nothing to go wrong or jam, and several cameras in past employed this approach - Konica III, to name one.

 

[melangeatrois]

This is the camera I've got, and yep it does have the 35-70 zoom. When I found the manual at Butkus.org, it is called simply "Espio," which I realize is confusing because there are dozens of models in this line. Here's the manual link so you can see what i'm talking about, and a photo of the camera afterwards. The Espio Mini I have is what confused me about this camera because the Mini has the switch to the left of the viewfinder.

Manual with photo of the camera I found: http://www.cameramanuals.org/pentax_p&s/pentax_p&s_espio.pdf

and here's the one I found.
Pentax Espio by Nelson.Watson, on Flickr
And i agree that it's a silver lining because those sorts of things do jam or go wrong. I guess this mask will go into the "Won't ever find" file along with a Stylus Epic remote. 😉