Junior Member Registered: July, 2012 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 42 | Review Date: August 31, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $300.00
| Rating: 7 |
Pros: | lightweight, awesome macro, great flash, zoom, time lapse capable | Cons: | Relative Low IQ, default iso settings. Low light performance | New or Used: New
| | This camera does not provide wonderful image quality and therefore won't win any landscape photography awards when shots are blown up. When it turns on, it automatically defaults to auto iso, which means at the hint of poor light it increases iso to the 800 range pretty quickly. Anything above is resulting in poor quality photos.
That's one of my few gripes, as for the value at the time, it gave pretty good features, as do most Pentax products in this compact range while not topping the lists of best cameras in their class.
What it does do well is Macro....typical wonderful Pentax macro!! The flash even performs really well when doing close up night shots of bugs and insects. It focus' to 1cm and this is where it shines. It has the usual range of scene modes and easy to understand Pentax system. It zooms to 26x and then goes way beyond that with a digital zoom function, when say, shooting the moon can bring some reasonable results, especially for a new photographer.
It also has a time lapse function (easily stitched together in Picasa) and auto exposure bracketing, giving quite a lot of control and fun.
This camera is great for the first time photographer and someone wanting a lightweight walkabout option offering OK image quality and a degree of creativity. Plenty available now very cheap second hand as the predecessor the Pentax X5.
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