1. 12-megapixel resolution captures enough detail for poster-sized prints
2. 3x optical zoom; Digital Shake Reduction
3. 2.5-inch LCD screen; Face Recognition function
4. New Dynamic Range Adjustment function
5. Capture images to SD cards (not included); 21.1MB of built-in memory

Editorial Review :

The tiny, pocket-sized, 12-Megapixel Optio S12 features Face Recognition and Dynamic Range Adjustment that's ideal for portraits. For easy composition and review of images, the S12 offers a 2.5" LCD monitor with an Anti-reflective coating and Bright mode. Digital Shake Reduction automatically selects a higher ISO, up to 3200, for blur-free images. Sensor Type - 1/1.7 interline transfer CCD with primary color filter Dynamic Range Adjustment and Face Recognition features are ideal for portraits Face Recognition can be activated and faces selected in any mode with dedicated button Digital Shake Reduction automatically selects higher ISO, up to 3200, for blur free images Auto Picture mode selects the best capture mode for the scene ISO Sensitivity - Auto 64-3200 (3200 in Digital SR mode), auto range adjustable, and Manual 64-3200 (3200 in Digital SR mode) White Balance - Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, and Fluorescent Shutter Type - 1/2000 to 1/4 seconds (4 sec available in Night Scene mode) File Formats - JPG (EXIF 2.2), DCF 2.0 (design rule for camera file system), DPOF, Print Image Matching III Stills, AVI (DivX with MPG-4), 30 fps with sound movies, WAV (PCM), and monaural sound Interfaces - USB 2.0 hi-speed, AV out, NTSC, PAL Video out, and PictBridge Dimensions - 3.6 x 2.2 x 0.9 Weight - 4.6 ounces without battery or card (5.3 ounces with batteries)

Customer Review :

No review yet

1. 7.1-megapixel CCD and 3x Pentax optical zoom lens
2. Enhanced waterproof construction allows the W30 to be submerged down to ten feet for up to two hours
3. 2.5-inch low-reflection LCD monitor; all-new Bright mode
4. Ultra-fast 9-point auto focus; Portrait mode utilizes Face Priority AF for perfect results
5. High-quality extended movie captures QuickTime motion JPEG at 30fps; built-in editing functions

Editorial Review :

Take your underwater images to a new depth. With an enhanced waterproof design, the compact Optio W30 performance capacity has more than doubled and now allows photographers to capture images underwater up to 10 feet for 2 hours. The generous 2.5-inch LCD monitor offers an LCD Bright Mode that can adjust the brightness of the screen as necessary for improved viewing in the sunlight. Ever the perfect camera for capturing adventure in the outdoors, the Optio W30 also features both Digital and Movie SR modes to reduce blur in both image and video capture. The Optio W30 also features the Face Recognition function and Macro Photography mode to allow image capture at under half an inch for stunning close-ups of photography subjects such as flowers, insects, jewelry and much more.

Customer Review :

Great Digital Camera

This digital camera was recommended by a friend. It was hard to find in the stores so I bought online. I love the way it focuses and needs very little preparation. I was shooting moving objects and also I was on a moving ferry shooting other moving objects. The pictures were great. Very clear. Also very misty and rainy days and no problem as the camera is waterproof. I would recommend this camera to anyone. Great price by the way. I paid $100.00 less then the going price. Thanks.

Rating :

Tiny camera but excellent photos; and yes it is waterproof!

I bought one of these about two years ago and I've loved it! I've taken thousands of photos with it, at home and overseas, and been quite pleased with the results. Obviously it doesn't have the features of a big, expensive camera...but that hasn't stopped people from complimenting many of the photos (especially after they see the little thing I took them with). And it's so easy to take along everywhere. Yes, I have used it underwater several times and in saltwater no less, and had no leaks of any kind. However, I wasn't diving or otherwise dunking it deeply, merely sticking it underwater while sitting in a kayak or wading around a reef. :) One note, if you use it in saltwater, plan to clean the lens before using it again out of the water, as salt residue will collect on it. Speaking of the lens, when I got the camera I was concerned about the lack of any lens cover. I expected to constantly be getting a thumbprint or dirt on it, or that it might be easily damaged. But after lots of use (including often carrying it loose in a pocket), I've found the lens stays surprisingly clean. My only complaint is that the battery doesn't seem to hold a charge all that well anymore, but it's been through a lot of charge/discharge cycles. Excellent little camera!

Rating :

Worked great for one whole year! Then died for no reason...

Difficult to say what happened. It was a phenomenon. I took pictures of my child learning to swim at 1 year of age and then as he approached his 2 year birthday it died. Pentax was no help, a repair costs 70% of the cost of a new camera. What to do?

The camera worked like a dream for the first 12 months. Perfectly. I mean like a dream. Excellent quality, water proof. Durable. Good battery life, you name it. Then it up and died. Hmmm.....

Rating :

concerns...

I bought this camera a while ago. This week I gave it to my 16 yr old daughter because she fell in love with it. It's a great idea but for me, I was a little disappointed for two reasons:

1) I have familial hereditary tremors...a cute little phrase doctors use when they have no idea what it is. It's not Parkinson's Disease but I do shake, which makes it harder to get sharp photos with small Point-and-Shoots like this one. At least half of my shots came out blurred. Not the end of the world, since my 2-MB card holds LOTS of photos and I can pick and choose. But many times an important shot that looked good on the LCD turned out blurry and unusable on my Mac's screen at 4x6". This however is more the fault of being 61 and with the lightness of most P&Ss. However, I would LOVE to see Pentax make an underwater camera with real optical VR, rather than just upping the ISO.

2} I live on Maui. Several times a year we go out on whale-sighting boats. This time the sea was rough. I placed the W30 in a side pocket of my pants and the next time I took it out the screen was cracked. I could still take photographs, I just couldn't compose them on the LCD screen. This cost $120 to fix by Pentax Corp. I don't remember hitting said pocket against anything, so I was confused by how easily the camera was put out of commission.

So I just ordered the W60, the W30's underwater successor. Hope springs eternal, not to mention that being able to take the camera underwater and into dusty or sandy areas is so cool. I'm going to buy a small bean bag to use as a rest for the camera, which should eliminate the effects of my shakes. I also have a padded case for it to protect it from rough seas or whatever.

I hope this review proves useful to those who shake, and who still go down to the sea in ships.

Rating :

Pentax Optio W30 makes it Easy to Take Great Pictures

I've only had this camera about three months and will do a long term review at a later date. I bought this camera primarily to take pictures from my boat in Choctawhatchee Bay and on river canoe trips. I was looking more for splash resistance as I don't plan opn taking photos under water.
The W30 is easy to use and takes very nice rich looking pictures.The camera is well made and the size makes it easy to bring everywhere. The video is very good also but you must switch to pan focus or the sound of the auto focus motor is about all you will hear on playback. I plan to contact Pentax to see if there is a setting that will make it automaticly go to pan focus when movie mode is selected.
So far this camera has exceeded my expectations.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. 8.0-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 16 x 22-inch prints
2. 2.5-inch LCD display; 3x optical zoom
3. Face Recognition AF and AE function; Digital Shake Reduction mode
4. 16 photography modes including Natural Skin Tone, Flower, Sport, Pet, and Food
5. Stores images on SD memory cards; powered by li-ion battery

Editorial Review :

The Pentax Optio M40 has 8 Megapixels of image quality with a 3x optical smc Pentax lens to offer you an ultra-slim and stylish camera with an affordable price. Other advance features include Digital Shake Reduction, Auto Macro, Face Recognition Auto Focus and Auto Exposure. Record videos in QuickTime motion JPEG 640x480 at 30fps in high quality with the Optio M40's sophisticated, metallic body. Face Recognition AF & AE takes the guesswork out of portraits Extended flash range up to 18 feet illuminates your subject even when you can't get close High capacity Lithium-ion battery takes up to 230 shots, so you don't run out of power at important moments White Balance - Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten and Fluorescent Shutter speed - 1/2000 to 4 seconds Scene Modes - Auto Picture, Program, Night Scene, Movie, Voice Recording, Landscape, Flower, Natural Skin Tone, Portrait, Surf & Snow, Sport, Digital SR, Kids, Pet, Food and Frame Composite System Requirements - Windows ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS 9.2, X 10.1 or later and USB port Dimensions - Width 3.8 x Height 2.3 x Depth 0.7 Weight - 4.8 ounces / 4.1 ounces without battery and memory

Customer Review :

Excellent little workhorse

I purchased this camera to replace 5mp camera. The huge screen makes lining up those shoots a breeze, pictures have all turned out very nice (though red-eye seems a little bit more common than I am used too), and I absolutely LOVE the video recording. Sure the video is not put on your TV quality, but for those times when you don't carry a full camcorder around and just happen to have this in the car or wife's purse, the video is perfect. Since I live away from home, I am able to upload these smaller videos for family back home and allow them to see allot of our lives that they would miss.
A great camera, especially for the very low price.

Rating :

Pentax Optio M40; a great performer

Great "carryability". It can be carried in a small pocket and has the versatility of a larger camera...you're not an "Instant Tourist". It can be used for good effect under most conditions and easily downloads using
the provided software. Nicely finished.

Rating :

Pentax Optio M40 8MP Digital Camera

Thank you for the speedy service. I am enjoying my new camera.
I checked different locations for prices. Your company was by far the
best place to do business. Again thank you and I hope we can do business
in the future.

Rating :

disappointed

My pictures comes out dark when i am taping a dance video in a club.. when i put auto flash the pictures comes out as if there were ghosts all around and it comes out yellow. i have to put flash oen when i am in a dark place and sometime it comes out dark yellow.. everytime i take pictures the screen goes black then if the people move after the flash it comes out blurry..it is nothing like what i heard it will be.. money wasted.


Rating :

Misleading about an accessory

I like to use an ac power cord when doing work where the camera is connected to the computer, to save on battery life. This is also suggested in the instruction manual. But though the specs say this camera comes with an ac cord, that cord doesn't connect to the camera; it's part of the battery charger. To buy the right ac cord, you must go to another vendor, and put out another $35-40. Also, I haven't found any photo stitch ability the ability to align several landscape photos and then stitch them together) with this camera. I do like the small size.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. 6.0-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 14 x 19-inch prints
2. 3x optical zoom; 2.5-inch LCD display
3. Capture movies in QuickTime motion JPEG (640 x 480) at 30 frames per second; built-in movie editing functions
4. High-performance 0.6-second start-up and 0.05-second shutter lag
5. Powered by Lithium-ion battery DL-I8 (battery, charger, and AC cord included); stores images on SD memory cards

Customer Review :

Takes great pictures........maybe a bit sensitive to damage

I've had this camera for about a year and a half. While it worked right it was a great camera. Recently the backlight quit working while in camera mode. It still took fantastic pictures but you could not see your subject in the screen on the back (well you could see it but it wasn't lit up). Local camera shop charged 30 bucks for estimate...of course factory repair issue. Factory repair was 160.00 including the thirty already put down for estimate. Normally for a 250.00 camera I would never consider paying so much for a repair but a friend of mine wanted the camera and so he paid to fix it (couldn't buy one new for what he paid for the repair and there would be a warranty on it too). I don't know if they changed the seals as a part of that repair....they better have for all that money! It came back better than it was, I can only assume they've improved the firmware or the motherboard itself as that was most likely what they did, replaced the whole insides. I know it's the same outer camera because of a blemish on the outer body. This is a fantastic camera for its size, like all the small ones, the flash is only good for nearby shots, not good for a group picture etc. but it does far better than many small cameras like this that I've played with. The sensor on this camera does better than most small ones at high iso (usually high iso is so grainy you can't stand it on these little ones) but I still set it down to 200 as much as possible it improves the pictures a lot (you can also run noise ninja on the shots to improve them even more). The movies this little thing takes are excellent but they are quicktime file format and for me using xp 64 bit apple has not seen fit to release a 64bit quicktime player so I can only play the movies on a machine with 32 bit xp or probably vista. The options offered on the camera are great, it even has onboard image editing......which would be really useful if you carry a mini printer around and want to print straight off the camera. There are two newer incarnations of this camera the w20/w30. I do not like the way the battery door is arranged on this unit, it's on the bottom and it's a bit easy to open accidentally, on the w30 the battery door has been moved to the side, probably a slightly more intelligent location. The competing product to this is made by Olympus and is about 80 bucks more no matter where you shop, the olympus product seems to have more anti-shake tech built into it. I've owned Pentax film bodies in the past, only one gave me huge problems so they generally make good products. I think what messed me up with this camera was taking it with me in the car and something may have fallen on it but otherwise it is a very sturdy camera and I had no problems with leaks as others seem to have experienced. I've seen reviews where folks put this thing in boiling water and it survived so it's a pretty sturdy little beast. I can't decide yet to get a w30 or give the olympus a try, all I can say is read consumer reviews and form your own opinion, the only turn off for the olymps is it uses xd cards and I really don't want yet another flash memory format to deal with (they're also more expensive for the size).

Pros:
Battery life is pretty fair, extra batteries available cheaply on Ebay.
Movie mode with antishake
Onboard picture editing (light/dark/some basic effects)
Large view screen
SD card
Tough/waterproof

Cons:
I don't like battery door placement (bottom)
After a year and a half had a problem, expensive repair
Like someone else mentioned, to maintain waterproof integrity you must have seals changed occasionally
Two newer models w20/w30 with more megapixels
Flash only good for close subjects (that's pretty normal)
Antishake only works for movies apparently
Typically slow on the uptake, not good for fast action


Rating :

poor quality

I bought this camera for my many snorkeling trips worldwide. The first trip I took it on was the Maldives and I was really excited to get some great underwater shots. I took it out on the reef in fairly calm conditions and the camera failed and never would turn back on. I was really upset at this but figured that the company would replace it, however when I sent it to them they said the seals were fine so they would not replace it. WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY!!!!

Rating :

An ok camera. Slightly overpriced.

This is my second one of this camera. (First one got waterlogged because I forgot to lock the battery compartment and left it in the water a few minutes longer than I was supposed to.) The picture quality isn't as high as that of my regular digital cameras, but I guess you can't have it all. I love that I can take my camera into the lake for up-close pictures of my daughter splashing! It takes nice pictures ... they just disappoint me when I try to zoom in. Also, it sometimes looks as if it is focussed on exactly what I want a picture of then switches to something else last-second when I click. (One time I tried to get a pic of my daughter building a sand castle. ... last second it switched focus over to her pail and shovel!)

I hope that in the future, this camera is lowered to under $200 and/or much better ones come out in the $300-350 range. ... Next time I might just look for a waterproof case for my Kodak Easyshare.

Rating :

LCD screen unusable in the daylight!

I bought this camera two years ago as an alternate camera to take along in my purse or when riding horse back. My main camera is a Canon EOS D-60.

I have two Pentax 35 mm that I used before digital, and I really liked them, so I figured this would be a quality camera.. boy was I wrong.

The zoom is great if you use a tri-pod or can stabilize against something, and... if the sun isn't bright so you can focus on your subject..

but basically.. any shots without stablization or in the sunlight are worthless.

I am very dissappointed in this camera..and wish I had bought another Canon.

Rating :

Over 2 years, and still loving it

I love this camera! It is not perfect (I would have preferred to give it 4.5 stars), but it is very close. I love being able to carry this camera with me and use it for any occasion. Sure, it is not the best for low light or professional quality pictures, but you can't expect that quality from something that will easily fit in your pocket. Many times i have had it with me and it started to rain and other people have to put up their camera, but i just looked at them and smiled!

I've taken it all over (Hawaii, Costa rica, florida, utah) and put it through all sorts of trouble. I've had it snorkeling, surfing (less than 5 ft waves), snowboarding, weddings, and even at disney world. I've dropped it several times and it is still fine. I don't recommend dropping it just to see what will happen, but it should be able to withstand the accidental drop.

The pictures turn out remarkably well, but low light conditions are definitely not the best. You have to be extra careful unless you have a tripod when taking any low light pictures to avoid blur. The biggest problem that I have with it when I am in the water are water drops sticking to the lens. This results in a fabulous shot, except for the big blur spot right smack in the middle.

The video is also really good is you overlook the sound. I would say that the video quality rivals my old time mini-vhs camcorder, if not better. As long as their is sufficient light (overcast and brighter is ok), the quality will be great. I've played some of my videos on a 50" plasma and everyone that saw it was amazed that it came from a small digital camera.

I would highly recommend this to anyone. You may want to upgrade to the w20 or w30, but the only real difference is the ability to go a few feet deeper and 1 more megapixel.


Pros: good still pictures, great video, small enough to carry everywhere, WATERPROOF, SD media, lots of settings, quick start up

Cons: only good still pictures, poor audio recording with video, video files are huge (15 minutes per gigabyte), only waterproof to 5 feet for 30 minutes, water drops stay on lens, no optical view finder

Rating :

More reviews...

1. 8.1-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 16x 22-inch prints
2. 3x optical zoom; Digital Shake Reduction
3. 2.4-inch LCD screen; Face Recognition
4. Panorama mode for stitching three photographs into one panoramic picture
5. Captures images to SD memory cards (not included); powered by AA batteries

Editorial Review :

Easy to use, affordable, and powered with only AA batteries, the Optio E50 8-Megapixel Digital Camera is the perfect choice for digital newbie and travelers. Face Recognition Auto Focus and Auto Exposure can recognize up to 10 faces to assure properly exposed portraits Digital Shake Reduction mode automatically selects higher ISO setting up to 1600 Panorama mode automatically stitches a series of three images into one wide scene Sensor Type - 1/2.5 CCD Metering System - TTL Multi-segment Exposure compensation - 2 EV (1/3 steps) White Balance - Auto preset modes Shutter speed - 1/2000 to 1/4 seconds (up to 4 sec in Night Scene Mode) Language Support - English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Russian, Korean, Traditional/Simplified Chinese, Danish, Finish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, and Thai Interfaces - USB 2.0 hi-speed, AV, dock terminal connection, NTSC, PAL Video out, PictBridge, and Kodak ImageLink print system Dimensions - 3.8 x 2.4 x 0.9 at thinnest depth Weight - 4.2 ounces without battery or memory (5.8 ounces with battery and card)

Customer Review :

No review yet