Philippe
12-18-2004, 04:04 AM
I bought my SV a few weeks ago. I bought it because of its formfactor and its 5x zoom ,optical of course. Nobody use digital zoom, it divides the number of pixels by the square of the zoom factor.
Nevertheless I will check the digital zoom of this camera more in detail since it looks as if the camera does some up-sizing. The result is less bad than I expected.
The GOOD things about the camera are:
- 5x optical zoom: you MUST keep the camera steady however
- 5 MP: but read further
- Video 30 fps w/ Audio: the files are in AVI, hurray. The sound quality however ...
- Small, small, small: attach it to your belt and forget until you need it
The LESSER things:
- focussing: can be problematic in 1) low light, 2) when camera or subject (kids !) moves, 3) full zoom. Low light being a living room lit with 200-250 Watts. Also be warned that it WILL allow you to take a picture even when NOT focussed.
- EV compensation does not function when flash is disabled in P-mode. You can set the EV compensation but the pictures come all out with the same EV. EV bracketing however DOES function. That is strang: EV compensation, also known as program shifting, is used exactly for forcing the program to shift to a darker or lighter setting.
- Audio: the audio seems to be recorded at such a high volume that recordings are oversteered most of the time, resulting is a crackely sound.
- 5 MP: pictures do not seem to have the sharpness one would expect from a 5MP camera. Fiddling with the sharpness setting does not seems to bring any improvement but I need to check more in depth on this. I also want to compare with pictures from my other cameras.
Most of these lesser points can be solved via upgrade (Optio 750 received an upgrade improving its focussing). Unfortunately the Optio SV is very recent and I think Pentax is still gathering customer feedback to generate an upgrade (so, give Pentax your feedback).
Since I like the camera, I'll be waiting for the upgrade patiently.
Philippe = Optio SV, Olympus C4040, Olympus C2100
Nevertheless I will check the digital zoom of this camera more in detail since it looks as if the camera does some up-sizing. The result is less bad than I expected.
The GOOD things about the camera are:
- 5x optical zoom: you MUST keep the camera steady however
- 5 MP: but read further
- Video 30 fps w/ Audio: the files are in AVI, hurray. The sound quality however ...
- Small, small, small: attach it to your belt and forget until you need it
The LESSER things:
- focussing: can be problematic in 1) low light, 2) when camera or subject (kids !) moves, 3) full zoom. Low light being a living room lit with 200-250 Watts. Also be warned that it WILL allow you to take a picture even when NOT focussed.
- EV compensation does not function when flash is disabled in P-mode. You can set the EV compensation but the pictures come all out with the same EV. EV bracketing however DOES function. That is strang: EV compensation, also known as program shifting, is used exactly for forcing the program to shift to a darker or lighter setting.
- Audio: the audio seems to be recorded at such a high volume that recordings are oversteered most of the time, resulting is a crackely sound.
- 5 MP: pictures do not seem to have the sharpness one would expect from a 5MP camera. Fiddling with the sharpness setting does not seems to bring any improvement but I need to check more in depth on this. I also want to compare with pictures from my other cameras.
Most of these lesser points can be solved via upgrade (Optio 750 received an upgrade improving its focussing). Unfortunately the Optio SV is very recent and I think Pentax is still gathering customer feedback to generate an upgrade (so, give Pentax your feedback).
Since I like the camera, I'll be waiting for the upgrade patiently.
Philippe = Optio SV, Olympus C4040, Olympus C2100