Pentax Optio S5z Review

The Optio S5z features a Pentax 5.8-17.4mm 3x optical zoom with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 36.5 - 107mm, the maximum aperture is f2.6 - f4.8. The lens is all glass and consists of 6 elements in 5 groups with 2 dual-sided aspherical elements. When the camera is powered down the lens is retracted inside of the body and a built in shutter closes to protect the lens.

It has a 7-point AF system with user-selectable AF point location, Spot AF, infinity landscape and manual focus. The focusing range in Normal mode is 1.31 ft (0.4m) to Infinity; Macro mode: 7.1 inches (0.18 m) to 1.64 ft (0.5m); Super Macro mode: 2.4 inches (0.06m) to 7.9 inches (0.2m) at 10.2mm focal length. Manual Focus from 2.4 inches (0.06m) to Infinity at 10.2mm

You frame your pictures with the 2.5" color LCD, there is no optical finder. The LCD has approx. 100% coverage. Over to the top-right are two LEDs that indicate the flash and focus status.

The built in flash offers Auto, On, Off, Auto + Red-Eye Reduction, On + Red-Eye Reduction. Flash range is approx. 0.65ft -11.5ft (0.2m - 3.5m) (5.8mm at ISO 200 ) Approx. 0.65ft -6.6ft (0.2m - 2m) (17.4mm at ISO 200)

On the top is the On/Off power button and the shutter release.

In the upper right hand corner is the zoom control which also functions as the index/magnify control in playback mode. The Quick "green" button switches the camera to Green mode (fully automatic), serves as image Delete in playback. The Play button (blue arrow) allows you to quickly switch to playback mode.

The 4-way controller lets you navigate menus and select images during playback. In record mode you press "Up" to enable remote or selftimer mode.

Pressing the MENU button calls up and dismisses the onscreen menu system. The Mode button calls up the virtual mode dial which we'll detail on the next page.

The I/O ports:

The PC/AV port handles both the USB 1.1 connection for download and the audio-video output for TV display.







The DC IN jack is for the optional AC power adapter or an external battery pack.

The Optio S5z is equipped with 10MB of internal memory and has a Secure Digital (SD) card slot in the battery compartment for optional memory cards. It's compatible with any capacity SD memory card. Data recorded on the internal memory can be copied to SD card.

Approx. capacity of internal 10MB memory Size/Quality Best Better Good 2560 x 1920 3 frames 5 frames 10 frames 2048 x 11536 5 frames 9 frames 13 frames 1600 x 1200 8 frames 14 frames 20 frames 1024 x 768 18 frames 33 frames 43 frames 640 x 480 40 frames 62 frames 83 frames

Approximate Storage with 64MB SD Card

The Optio S5z is powered by a proprietary D-LI8 3.7V 710mAh rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. Pentax claims the battery life is good for approx. 160 shots (LCD turned on and using the flash 50% of the time), continuous playback time is approx. 130 minutes. Charging time is a maximum of 100 minutes.