The Pentax Optio range has never been rated by the media, usually dismissed as being average. Sometimes, average is just what you need, not too much but not too little. I personally don't understand why this was cast aside as just another average camera, it has so much to offer. The selling point for Pentax, when this was introduced, was the all new "simple" mode, something we now know as intelligent auto. This was an innovation at the time and was one of the many modes available. It also has a Program Auto plus Aperture Priority, Speed Priority and full Manual plus scene modes. So, as you can see there was quite a lot on offer for an otherwise average camera.

In use it does have its limitations, but so do all compact cameras, and its strengths. After extensive use I can report that as far as I can see there are only 3 negative points. The most irksome, and it would seem to be a design fault if the forums are anything to go by, is the battery life. It uses just 2 AA batteries and these need to be good ones . If you keep the camera powered on with the LCD running, even with battery save mode set to its best setting, the batteries will only last about an hour. The way I have got around this is to power off and on as needed and this keeps the batteries running a lot longer. The start up time is very fast and the camera comes back up at the settings which were in operation at power down so it isn't a problem powering off and on. The other points are the limited macro, which isn't really a macro at all, more just a close up function with a minimum distance of 5cm. Lastly, don't shoot towards the sun. The lens is prone to some severe chromatic aberration in such circumstance. Apart from these issues this is a great little pocket camera and the results I have obtained have actually been quite remarkable and far from average.