Pentax OptioWP >

Not too many people will discuss the use of their camera. I’ll try to go into some detail into my use of this one. I don’t have much of a background with which to compare this camera, so I’ll just be a clean slate talking about things candidly.

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Turning it on ∞

Some reviewers claim that this camera is difficult to turn on. This is not true. A firm press with a fat finger or the edge of a fingernail is fine. The button is recessed so it’s not as likely to be turned on by accident. It’s otherwise quite normal.

Battery recharge ∞

The battery did take about an hour and a half to fully charge. I was told that some older camera batteries took 14 hours and the like. This was not the case with me.

Battery life is pretty subjective, but I’ll note anything interesting.

The battery life is pretty good, but not as good as people have reported. I could take a good 100 pictures over an hour before killing a battery. It’s important to carry a spare.

When taking lots of pics, the battery seems to get warm. I’ve had cases where I could swap out the battery and the spent battery will cool down a bit more, allowing additional use.

Capture time ∞

This seems to be a fast camera. I would like to have the ability to press the shutter to have it startup and take an automatic-mode picture.

Startup time isn’t as fast as I’d like, and that’s mostly because I’m pressing power and then the shutter. Being able to hold the shutter half-way, which is easier than it sounds, to focus is a nice feature. The shutter speed is very fast, the capture time in general is very fast at its highest resolution and quality settings. The extra high speed modes really do take three pictures a second. That’s fast.

One amazing feature is that you can pull it out, hold the shutter button to have it wake up and shoot a picture, then power it off right away. It will notify you that it’s still saving data, but it will power off when it’s done. I love this.

Quality ∞

I’m seeing obvious blurring and grain as well as fuzz on finer details. I’m assuming that I could clean things up by being more careful as a photographer. This needs to be watched. I think the automatic modes are probably being dumb.

Without amazing light, pictures will all be blurry or grainy. It’s truly horrible. I’ve had to use a flash even in a brightly-lit room.

The screen ∞

The screen is “ok” but obviously lacking the crisp definition found elsewhere. It’s obvious there was a tradeoff to save power. I’m fine with that.

The screen looks good even in bright daylight. Maybe the reviewers have used vastly superior products and I don’t know what I’m missing.

The red and yellow colouration, which is painted for objects which are too bright or too dark, flashes oddly and seems to be meraly a curiosity at this point.

Connectivity ∞

It was seen without a hitch as a USB device for a mac mini and for my PCLinuxOS box. Windows XP Pro wanted drivers and couldn’t seem to download them automatically. The mac mini next to it was handy so I abandoned hope early on. I doubt there’s much of an issue, but I’m surprised to get a hardware wizard.

I was forced to hit the power button on the camera to have it be seen as a usb device. It seems strange to me, and I wonder how much power it’s using in this mode.

The storage seems fast enough. It’s obviously going to be fairly slow reading 2-3 meg pictures though.

The controls ∞

I think the menuing system could have been done a little better. left/right to enter sub-menus is a bit annoying.

From the viewfinder mode, I can easily play with the various settings.. the flash mode, the focus mode and the 15 programmed modes. The four-way toggle thing can be rocked in one of the four modes to enter four different menus to quickly switch things. When I get good it won’t take me more than a couple of seconds to change the settings the way I want.

I haven’t played with the programmable “green modes” yet. That’s something I want to get into.

Zooming ∞

Zooming is fast enough, but it’s surprising that I can hear the zoom the way I do.

The camera zooms out before powering down, which can be a little slow.

I can set things up to remember my zooming levels when I power it off.. so when I turn it back on it’ll re-zoom back out to that setting. I don’t like this feature, but it’s interesting to note.

Auto-refocusing is available in ‘sports’ and ‘pet’ modes. Holding the shutter button partway down will have the zoom constantly adjusting to get a better shot.

The clock ∞

When it’s off I briefly hold ok and get the time. That’s neat. The big analog display is stupid, but at least I have a smaller digital time display. This “feature” is not configurable.

The case ∞

There is a bit of a ridge around the lens, so I’m not worried about putting it face down. I’m in fact more worried about resting it on the LCD screen, as I don’t want that scratched.

It’s difficult to hold because it’s so small and there are many regions I don’t want to touch (lens, flash, LCD screen). It’s difficult to get the USB cable in and out because of this, and because of the snug fit. With some practice it becomes quite easy to handle.

The closure on the cover is very easily accessible, and the simple lock is a nice touch.

I don’t think this case is aluminum. It looks like painted plastic to me. I think I read “brushed aluminum” from a review. Frankly I’m beginning to not trust the reviews I’ve read. This thing has turned out a bit different than I expected.

I’m thankful I got a snug camera case, and it’s very important to keep the lens cover clean. Water spots are brutal on picture quality, especially when using the flash.

Random comments ∞

• I wish I could charge this via USB.
• The battery is a bit difficult to take out easily. Not much of a big deal. It would be nice if the end of the battery had a bit of an edge to use one’s fingernails to pull with.
• My magnetic field sensitivity hasn’t been an issue at all with this camera. This is a wonderful benefit and now I’m quite glad I didn’t pick up the earlier model which used AAs because I know that one would have irritated me. Yay!
• I can say for sure that this camera can handle getting wet and it takes great pictures in the rain.
• The shutter needs to be pressed firmly enough that camera shake is a problem because of that. It should be redesigned.
• The green light on power on is pretty lame. Flashing with activity when plugged in via USB is cool though.

• Somehow you cannot format an SD card unless it’s already formatted. The functionality seems to be intentionally locked out. I think they mean “format” as “delete all files”. =/

Questions ∞

• Can this be used as a webcam?

• When I take pictures with the internal memory, how would I then copy it to an SD device?