Pentax Optio 550 Review



Playback Screens & Menus
Pressing the Play button brings up the last image captured in full
screen mode with the minimal data overlayed. Pressing the 4-way "Right" or "Left"
lets you move through the stored images. Pressing the OK button allows you to record
an audio memo up to 30 seconds in length that is attached to the current image.
Pressing the DISPLAY button enable the histogram and the extended exposure information.
Information includes image size, image quality, white balance, metering mode and ISO
speed. The musical note icon indicates that a sound memo has been recorded and attached
to the image, press the 4-way "Up" to play it back.
Pressing the Zoom-Wide button brings up the thumbnail index mode, here you can quickly
search through the stored images and select one for full screen playback.
While an image is displayed full screen you can magnify it by pressing the Zoom-Telephoto
button. Once magnified you can scroll around inside of it
using the 4-way selector. You can enlarge up to 8x in 0.1x steps.
Movie clips playback fullscreen, the 4-way selector acts as the start, stop and
pause control.
You can pause a movie and play it forwards or backwards one frame at a time.
A very limited play mode menu, you can resize the image, trim (crop) the image, set up to
three alarms or initiate an automatic slideshow.
The Trimming function lets you crop an image and save it as a new image.
The DPOF function lets you embed printing information on the card which can
be later used in photo printers with card slots or at a photo kiosk at your
camera store or mall.
The Setup menu (same in record and play) lets you Format the memory card, enable or disable the beep sounds when buttons are pushed, set the date style, change the date and or time, set the world time zone or change the menu language. Page two of the Setup menu lets you set the startup screen graphic, the video format (NTSC or PAL), set the Sleep timeout value (90s, 1m, 2m), the Auto Off time, enable Quick Delete and Quick Zoom (image is magnified 8x with a single push of the telephoto button in play mode).
Page three has options to setup the Functions on the 4-way controller
buttons (Image size, image quality, white balance, focusing area, AE
metering, ISO speed, digital zoom, instant review, sharpness, saturation or
contrast), enable the focus limiter or Reset to factory defaults.
The World Time function lets you select the timezone of 62 different cities around the world. |
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