Pentax P30n/P3n/P30t

Pentax P3n image by Mark O'Brien (Image rights)

The Pentax P30n (P3n in US) is a manual-focus 35 mm SLR camera first issued in 1988. It followed the Pentax P30/P3 and offered improvements over it. It allows aperture-priority auto-exposure, fully programmed auto-exposure, or metered manual exposure. It has a focal-plane shutter with metal blades, travelling vertically, which gives shutter speeds from 1 - 1/1000 second, plus 'B'; the shutter speed is displayed in the viewfinder. This has familiar SLR focusing aids; a central horizontally-split prism rangefinder, and a microprism ring around this. The P30t variant of 1990 has a diagonally-split focusing screen and a plastic film door instead of the horizontally-split screen and metal door of the earlier model.

The camera uses DX codes to set the film speed (this is the only way to set the speed; if film without a DX code is loaded, the camera defaults to ISO 100). There is a window in the film door so that the type of film loaded can be seen.

P30T top view image by Brian Eager (Image rights)

P30N image by kh1234567890 (Image rights)

Links

• P3n, P30n and P30t on Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount website.