Pentax Optio S Review

Typical still image recording screen in the default Program AE shooting mode. Here we do have options enabled like continuous shooting mode, macro focus mode, the flash is disabled and we have set an exposure compensation value of -0.3EV. There's space for another 49 pictures on the SD card and the battery level is full. The white brackets in the center is the auto focus area.

When the shutter is half-pressed and the auto focus is locked the AF point will shrink and turn green and the selected shutter speed and aperture value is displayed.

Pressing the DISPLAY button will turn the color LCD on/off and also controls how much information is overlayed on top of the live image. Here we have all of the information enabled including the realtime histogram display.

Still image menu options:

Rec. Mode page 1 of 3:

Recorded Pixels - 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 1024x768 or 640x480

Quality Level - Best, Better or Good

White Balance - Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorecent or Manual

Focusing Area - Multi. or Spot

AE Metering - Multi segment, Center-weighted or Spot

Sensitivity - Auto, 50, 100 or 200

Rec. Mode page 2 of 3:

Digital Zoom - On/Off

Instant Review - 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 secs. and Off

Fast Fwd Movie - Sets speed (x2, x5, x10, x20, x50, x100 and Off)

3D Mode - Parallel Mode or Cross Mode

Memory - Saving shooting function settings when camera is turned off

Sharpness - Hard, Normal or Soft

Rec. Mode page 3 of 3:

Saturation - Hard, Normal or Soft

Contrast - Hard, Normal or Soft

EV Compensation - +/-2.0 in 1/3EV steps

The shooting modes are selected from a virtual Mode Dial that is activated by pressing Down on the 4-way controller. The selection includes: Program, Picture mode, Night scene, Movie, Panorama assist, 3D image, Digital filter and User.

The Picture mode selection includes: Landscape, Flower, Portrait, Self-portrait, Surf & Snow, Autumn color and Sunset.

The Digital Filter mode includes: Slim and Wide for distorting the image height and width and a host of color effect filters (Black & White, Sepia, Red, Pink, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple)

In the Super Macro Mode you can focus from 2.4 to 8 inches with excellent results. The regular Macro mode covers a range from 7 to 20 inches.

Manual focus mode lets you set the focus distance manually with an onscreen distance gauge and the LCD image is enlarged while you focus.

Manual AF point selection lets you override the automatic focus system and place the active AF point anywhere in a 7 x 7 grid on the screen.

3D mode helps you to capture two images with the proper offset so that they can be printed and then viewed with the included stereoscopic viewing aid.

Panorama Assist mode lets you take a series of images and then join them to create a panoramic image. There are four types of modes available: Join the images on the left, right, top or bottom. After the first image is captured you will see a transparent portion of the first image, this is used to achieve the proper overlap for a good panoramic image. The images captured in Panorama Assist mode can be "stitched" together using the supplied ACDSee software.

Movie mode lets you can record up to 30 secs (per clip) of motion JPEG at 320 x 240 resolution at 12fps. Monaural audio is also recorded.