Pentax Optio A20 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and Shake Reduction

by Pentax

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 3 x 1 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000HDIYE4
• Item model number: 19161
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,936 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The Pentax Optio A20 offers the pinnacle of Pentax compact digital photography in an ultra-compact aluminum alloy body. With a 10.0-megapixel CCD, a 3x optical zoom lens, built in Shake Reduction and Tracking AF, the Optio A20 offers a versatile manual shooting mode. Add to this, a 232,000 pixel 2.5-inch LCD and Movie mode MPEG-4 DivX (640 x 480) capture at 30fps and guaranteed video playback on all DivX certified devices. The convenient charging cradle recharges a Lithium-ion battery in the camera.

10.0 effective megapixels image quality
The Optio A20 produces clear, high-quality images with 10.0 effective megapixels. The superb level of resolution makes it possible to produce prints with crisp detail even when the photo is enlarged to A3 size. The Optio A20 image sensor is a large 1/1.8-inch CCD with a wide light-sensitive area, which realizes superior tone reproduction, fine textures, and greater noise reduction.

High-performance smc Pentax zoom lens
The Optio A20 is equipped with a high-quality smc Pentax zoom lens, which is renowned for its clarity and high-contrast image performance. The lens configuration, with seven elements in five groups including three aspherical elements, effectively corrects for spherical aberration. The lenses are coated using a Pentax-developed technique to reduce ghosting and flare.

Three Anti-Shake functions featured:

• SR (Shake Reduction): The SR (Shake Reduction) mechanism, developed by Pentax, features two gyro sensors that detect the amount of shake and an image sensor (CCD) that moves both horizontally and vertically to reduce the camera shake. The SR mechanism effectively prevents shake at the instant that the shutter is clicked to take a photograph.
• Blur Reduction mode: In this mode, the camera automatically adjusts the sensitivity to as high as ISO 1600 according to the brightness of the subject. The higher sensitivities permit faster shutter speeds that reduce not only camera shake but also the blurring caused by moving subjects.
• Movie Anti-Shake Function: Camera shake while taking a movie can also be corrected automatically by software, thanks to an electronic, movie anti-shake function.

New Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)
A new ASIC supplies the Optio A20 with dramatically more image-processing power. With this ASIC high-speed processing capability, the Optio A20 attains a high level of tone reproduction and color correction based on enormous amounts of actual photo data.

Face Recognition AF and AE for beautiful one-step portraits
The Optio A20 features the new Face Recognition AF and AE function, which helps ensure bright, beautiful photos of people with perfectly focused faces free of shadows caused by exposing for the background or for the colors of clothing. This useful function automatically detects the position of the subject anywhere in the photo frame and then adjusts the focus and optimizes the exposure for the detected position.

Auto-tracking AF continuously focuses on a moving subject
The Optio A20's auto-tracking AF feature continuously focuses on subjects such as kids and pets that move around unpredictably. Since the focus frame automatically follows the movement of the subject inside the photo frame, you can be sure to capture those instantaneous photo opportunities.

High-quality movies with an anti-shake function
The Optio A20 smoothly captures movies at 30 fps (frames per second) at sizes up to 640 x 480 pixels with image quality rivaling camcorders. Since it employs the DivX¨ (MPEG-4 compliant) movie format, the Optio A20 can record longer, high-quality movies.

Auto Picture mode automatically determines the best settings for the shooting conditions
The Auto Picture mode lets the camera automatically determine the shooting conditions for Landscape, Portrait, Night Scene, and Program modes and choose the optimum settings for each subject. This Pentax original function makes photography a lot easier for users since it eliminates the necessity of making a number of individual settings. A wide range of exposure setting mode in Programmed Exposure mode, the camera automatically determines the shutter speed and aperture. The camera also includes Shutter-Priority AE mode and Manual Exposure mode, which the user can set freely depending on the effect they are aiming to achieve.

Compact and lightweight body
Despite incorporating a large CCD and the SR system, we managed to create a slimmer and lighter body by using our unique Sliding Lens system together with high-density mounting technology.

Supports the SDHC memory card for greater storage of high-quality images and longer movies
The Optio A20 supports two removable storage media: the conventional SD memory cards and the new SDHC memory cards.

Red-eye correction available after shooting
The Optio A20 comes with FotoNation's red-eye correction function, which can correct red-eye problems, a side effect of flash photography, after the photo is taken. With the ability to manually select the area to correct, this function allows for more precise correction of red-eye photos.

Additional Features

• Calendar Display function allows image retrieval based on the capture date
• Easy image search and arrangement on a PC using a Date Folder function
• Green Mode enables the use of fixed, automatic settings when taking a photograph
• Digital zooming provides up to 4x magnification
• Approximately 22MB of built-in memory
• Pan-focus function for effortless snapshots
• ACDSee for Pentax image viewer/image management software
• USB 2.0 (hi-speed) compatible
• Supports PictBridge, DPOF functions, Exif Print, and PRINT Image Matching III

What's in the Box
Digital camera, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, battery charger, USB cable, AV cable, wrist strap, CD-ROM with software and drivers, printed operation manual

Product Description

The flagship of the Optio digital camera line, the high-end Pentax Optio A20 offers the pinnacle of Pentax compact digital photography in an ultra-compact alumninum alloy body. With a 10 megapixel CCD, a 3X optical zoom lens, built in Shake Reduction and Tracking AF, the Optio A20 offers a versatile manual shooting mode. Add to this, a 232,000 pixel 2.5 LCD and Movie mode MPEG-4 DivX (640 x 480) capture at 30fps and guaranteed video playback on all DivX certified devices. The convenient charging cradle recharges a Lithium-ion battery in the camera.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable, October 21, 2006

By 

Brandon E. Griffith (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pentax Optio A20 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and Shake Reduction (Electronics)

First of all, I'm an electronics freak. I'm also an electrical freak, aka an electrical engineering student in college. I bought a Pentax Optio s5i "way back" in 2003 (it does seem like a while ago), when it was one of the first 5 megapixel cameras on the market. I loved everything about that camera: the form factor, the picture quality, the battery life, its easy menu navigation, and the fact that if you didn't like the auto picture mode, which always took great pictures anyway, you could use a dozen other preset modes (like sports, sunset, flowers, outdoor...) or you could just use the manual focus and manual exposure value.

Everything that I loved about the s5i is still in the genetics of the A20. The camera is almost the identical size, and it uses the same battery model; but its unbelievable picture quality, incredibly fast response time (auto-focus time, readiness after taking a picture, turn-on time, etc.), DivX video capability, and huge 2.5 inch LCD emphasize the lightning-fast pace at which the semiconductor industry, specifically consumer electronics, has developed.

Some more nice features:

-Since the A20 is double the resolution of my old s5i, I was thinking that the picture files would be double the size, around 5MB, but this is not so. The camera uses compression (which is adjustable in the menu) to keep files around 3.5MB at 10 megapixels at the best quality (***, three stars).

-The A20 has a "green button" that is soft-key that the user can set in the menu. Pressing the green button will change the display in the LCD to where the user can adjust 4 different settings all with just the arrow keys. The user can choose in the menu which 4 settings are displayed with the green button and the 4 settings can be any item that is in the regular menu.

-The focus capability is unbelievable. The A20 has auto, macro, super-macro, pan, infinity, and manual focus modes. I held my finger right in front of the lens and was able to take an excellent picture of my finger print...you never know when you might need a picture like that... :)

I've only had the camera for a week now, so this review probably doesn't even scratch the surface but to sum it up:

-The camera is incredibly small for 10 megapixels but not too small to use (and I'm a pretty big guy).

-The 2.5 inch LCD is massive.

-The picture quality is unbelievable.

-The customization capabilty is very very extensive.

-The manual features are great.

-The camera is VERY easy to use!

....and I love it so much, that I'm going to buy my sister one for her birthday, but SSHHH, don't tell her!!!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pentax Optio A10, January 9, 2007

By 

B. han "Basil" (Schenectady, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pentax Optio A20 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and Shake Reduction (Electronics)

Purchased th A10 for my spouse. I, personally use SLRs.

Review could run several pages. Basically, the camera

is, technologically, ahead of its time and WILL out-do

a pro SLR in basic picture quality.

TIP: Try most shots without the flash. The shake-proof

feature looks after the rest. Why flash off? Limited

angle of light dispersion obviously favors center screen.

Normal picture mode in 3.2 mega pixels is generally sufficient

The A20 is 10+MP compared to the 8+MP of the A10 - for a hundred

bucks or so, more. Features are identical in both (except for

the higher MP which would seldom be warranted).

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good technology but not good for spontaneity, March 10, 2007

By 

Fragino (California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pentax Optio A20 10MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and Shake Reduction (Electronics)

It's a terrific little camera. The shake reduction works well. If you are shooting subjects that can be still for more than 3 seconds it produces really nice pictures. There is where my problems lies with the camera. I like to take spontaneous pictures of people. I don't like to have them posed, and when I have to I like to do it as quickly as possible before the smiles become stiff and wooden. It takes at least a few seconds for this camera to acquire and process a scene before it takes a picture, especially in less than ideal light conditions. Before somebody berates me for being ignorant about the regular shorcomings of digital cameras, I used to own an old Kodak digital camera. It was so old that it was not even a 1 megapixel camera but it took beautiful picture and it took them quickly. Taking a picture of a person with a REAL smile as they look up when you call them was not a problem with that old camera. Why is it a problem with this one? I've tried to use different settings but so far haven't solved the problem. I guess that's where the shake reduction comes in handy because I end up with the shakes as I hold the button down the requisite seconds it takes to process and take the picture. This is not a good camera for taking a picture of a dynamically changing scene. When you see a situation that you like to take a picture of, by the time the shutter opens, it has already gone and done. The best solution so far is that if I can anticipate something, I hold the button down halfway and focus on an area close to the distance of where I think it's going to happen, let the processor work and hope and wait for the action to happen at that spot. The only problem is that the focus may be right but the movement will have changed the light and the exposure will be off. All in all, for the premium price, I'm a little dissapointed but I still carry it around because it is a nice little camera.