Pentax Optio MX4 Review

Program recording mode is an automatic mode but has many menu and function options available. Shown here with the full info display enabled with live histogram in the lower right corner. Onscreen icons indicate space for another 173 still images or 16:58 of video capture. Image size was set at 2304x1728 pixels, *** (Best) quality, Auto white balance, AE metering, and ISO 100. The battery level is low. The white brackets in the center denote the auto focus area which is set to Narrow.

When the shutter is half-pressed and the auto focus is locked, the AF brackets turn green and the selected shutter speed and aperture value is also displayed.

The Tv (Shutter-speed priority) mode allows you to set a desired shutter speed and the camera will select the appropriate aperture value. If the shutter speed is too low or high then the aperture value is displayed in red which indicates that you need to select a different shutter speed. Shutter speed range is from 1/2,000 to 4 seconds.

The Av (Aperture priority) mode is like the Tv mode, here you select the desired aperture value and the camera selects the appropriate shutter speed. In wide-angle the available settings range from F2.9 - F8.0 and F3.5 - F8.0 in telephoto.

The Manual exposure mode gives you complete control over both the shutter speed and the aperture value. Adjust one or the other until the +/- indicator disappears when exposure is correct.

Press the MENU button to access these options:

Recorded Pixels - 2304x1728, 1600x1200, 1024x768 or 640x480
Quality Level - Best, Better or Good
White Balance - Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent or Manual
Focusing Area - Wide or Narrow
AE Metering - Multi segment, Center-weighted or Spot
Sensitivity - Auto, 100, 200, 400
Flash Exposure Compensation - Adjust flash output +1.0 to -2.0
Digital Filter - Color filter (B&W, Sepia, Red, Pink, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow)
Digital Zoom - Off, x4, x10
Instant Review - 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 secs. and Off
Memory - Saving shooting function settings when camera is turned off
Sharpness - Hard, Normal or Soft
Saturation - Hard, Normal or Soft
Contrast - Hard, Normal or Soft

The PICTure (Scene) modes are: Landscape, Flower, Portrait, Sports, Surf & Snow, Sunset, Night-Scene, Soft, Illustration, and Panorama Assist

In Super Macro Mode (shown) you can close focus from 0 inches (0cm) to 5.9 inches (0.15m) the lens is fixed at full wide angle. The regular Macro mode covers from 3.9 inches (0.1 m) to 1.64 ft (0.5m) Wide and 1.97 ft (0.6m) to 4.92 ft (1.5m) Tele.

Pressing the movie mode shutter release allows you to capture VGA (640x480) resolution MPEG-4 encoded full motion video with audio, the length of these movies is limited only by available memory.

Movie mode capture options include:

Recorded Pixels - 640x480, 320x240, 160x120
Quality Level - Best, Better or Good
Frame Rate - 30fps or 15fps
Color Mode - Color, B&W, Sepia
Fast Fwd Movie - Time-lapse movie mode (x20, x10, x5, x2, off)

The OptioMX4 can be used as a voice-only recorder too. Our camera has a 512MB SD card in it and as you can see, we could record 32 hours, 5 minutes and 10 seconds of audio.