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Pentax Optio M60
by Extoll
There seems to be quite a bit of disagreement about this little camera when you look around on the internet. Either people seem very happy with it or they are complaining and want to return it to the store as soon as possible. Personally I am pretty enthusiastic about this camera. I have it for over a year now and have not had any issues ... with it.
I am your average "photographer", as in I point and click and want the camera to do the work without me having to fumble around with settings. So I am not going to talk about ISO values, white balance, sensitivity, EV Compensation, ... because honestly I do not know what they are all for. Which means I will cover things that I think matter most when looking for a normal day to day use digital camera.
Design:
The Pentax M60 is compact, light and lies very comfortably in your hand. The manufacturer has kept the use of plastic to a bear minimum, which gives the camera a very solid feel. Most of the back of the camera is taken up by a good size screen (which has remained scratch free so far).
Lens and zoom:
The camera is able to take pictures up to 10 mega pixels, which is more than enough for your day to day use and holiday pictures. And this would allow you to enlarge your pictures if you would like without losing out on quality.
Pentax did a nice job with the 5X optical zoom, which works very well and will not give you any quality loss.
Memory:
The standard memory allows you to take 9 pictures on the best quality. So you will have to invest in an SD card to expand this. I have a 2gig SD card in my camera and that allows me to take 482 pictures on the best quality. Normally I set my camera on 7 mega pixels and than you can take up to 648 pictures.
Battery:
Pentax has chosen for a lithium-ion battery, which has to be recharged outside the camera in a separate charger (delivered with the camera). The battery life is something I cannot flaw, the camera can be used for a long time before you have to recharge. And there is a handy indicator on your screen, which shows the remaining battery available.
Modes:
There are no less than 24 preset modes you can chose from on this camera when taking a picture. All these modes are set by the manufacturer as "best" settings for certain situations. Just a grab out of the possibilities are night scene, flower, landscape, surf and snow, sport, pet.
I think the most important one though is the auto mode. The camera will then pick "the most likely correct mode" for you automatically. And in most occasions this will give you a very nice result.
Menu:
In the menu you can change the settings of your camera. The menu is very simple in use and self-explanatory. But I must admit that I have left most of the options as default.
Quality:
I'm not an expert but I cannot fault the picture quality. The pictures taken look sharp and the colours are very natural.
I have printed quite some pictures at home on photo paper with a normal printer and they come out just great!
Nice extras:
- Ability to make (short) movies
- "Smile capture" - Very funny to use at parties as the camera will automatically take a picture when it detects someone smiling
- "Face priority" - The camera will focus on faces when taking a picture
- A build-in picture editor so you can reduce red eyes, put a frame around a picture, adjust colours, ...
Overall:
A very nice point and click camera with lots of options and very good picture quality. In its price range I think it is a very worthy contestant with others.
If you feel there is something missing in this review, do let me know and I will do my best to add it.
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Pentax K20D
by Daffyboy
Like many ex film users, I started photography with a secondhand Pentax ME super. Sadly, I think there'll be no more generations with that background, and this might be bad news for Pentax. I have to admit that this influenced my choice of digital SLR, thinking back to when I chose that first camera with my Dad. Aside from the nostalgia, ... there was also the possibility to use my old lenses with the new digital version.
The K20D used to be the top of the Pentax digital SLR range, up until the recent introduction of the K7. Prices began to fall as the new model came out, and it's now possible to pick up bargains.
I think the ergonomics is a very important factor when choosing a digital SLR - if you're an enthusiast you'll be using the camera a lot, and these are quite bulky beasts, so if it doesn't sit well in hands, you won't be comfortable.
You'll probably want to consider models from Nikon, Canon and Sony as well as Pentax. For me, Canon didn't feel right, with a very narrow grip, while Sony models felt very angular. So I was left with Nikon and Pentax.
At the time, Nikon had recently released the D5000, and I was tempted by the D90. The Pentax K20D sits somewhere in between the two in terms of price and many of the features.
In the end I went for the Pentax, and not just for the nostalgia. It just felt right. And because the image stabiliser is in the body (rather than in the lens, as in many of the mid and lower price digital SLR models), you can easily use many of the older Pentax lenses that are available secondhand.
One big change if you're moving to digital SLR from a digital compact is the way you use the viewfinder. Because of the mirror mechanism, digital SLR cameras traditionally only use the screen for reviewing images, not for framing and taking photos. This is beginning to change with the introduction of "live view" in many models, but taking photos using the screen often uses a different focussing mechanism and so is slower and less reliable. One big advantage of SLR is the fact that photos are taken instantly when you press the shutter, so you won't want to reintroduce this lag. The Pentax Live View is available on the K20D, but I have hardly ever used it because of that.
The K20D lacks the video mode seen in the Nikons, but at the moment video in digital SLR cameras is very primitive (often lacking focussing and exposure options once you start recording) so you'll want a proper camcorder for recording anything important to you.
On a more technical side, the camera has maximum resolution of 14.6 Megapixels, so more than many of its competitors. I've been very happy with the image quality - photos are consistently bright and with good reproduction of colours. There are occasional blips, with underexposure every so often, so it pays to keep an eye on the review screen and be ready to adjust exposure. The viewfinder is large and bright (perhaps in part because it uses a glass prism like many more expensive models, rather than a mirror), and the screen good (although lower resolution than some of the more expensive competitors). The camera comes with a charger and a lithium ion battery that lasts a long time, and the built-in flash is fine for most short distance work. It pops up far enough to avoid red-eye problems most of the time.
I've been very happy. The camera feels well made, and is very comfortable to use.
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