Customer Reviews

Pentax Optio 330 3MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Pentax is my 3rd digital camera and it is the best in terms of size, features and image quality. I had a Canon Powershot A5 (.9 MPixel) and a Canon Powershot S10 (2.1 MPixels). Both were good cameras in their class but the Pentax Optio 330 has done a significant step forward. I was looking for a smaller Camera which I could take always with me and it should have 3 million pixels resolution and if possibel a 3x optical zoom lens. The Pentax fullfilled this wishlist and the 800 pictures which I have taken so far showed impressively a significantly improved image quality over my previous cameras beyond its obvious resolution advantage. Pro:
- Great color management, sharpness, large contrast - overall - very realistic images
- Large resolution 3 MPixels
- 3x optical Zoom 37-111 mm which produces very good and sharp images
- Rechargable Lithium battery which lasts through the day
- compact battery charger (100-240V)
- wealth of information about exposure data on the LCD display
- Compactflash Memory Type 1 - important when coming from Canon
- auto and manual exposure mode with shutter speed range 15 sec to 1/2000
- many more features
Con:
- LCD display quality does no match up to image quality - not important but annoying and reason for 4 instead of 5 stars! Not good enough to use for the manual focusing mode as it does not allow to judge correctly in focus or out of focus
- no additional 'low power' display with basic information on number of exposures flash mode or makro
- makro mode only in wide postion of zoom - a sacrifice to the small form factor
All in all a great small camera for every day use and well worth the money

I have one of these super little digitals in my pocket - smaller than my wallet, it's truly convenient for scenic shots. Its 3 X optical zoom is almost adequate, and helped by its 2X digital zoom. I agree with virtually all the pro's listed by the very enthusiastic fellow reviewers, but find the con's frustrating. These are (imho):
1. Low light focussing fails very often - the camera has no illuminating mechanism for autofocus - and allows a picture to be taken even if it has failed to find focus. Often it seems to guess - and will focus on distance once, then close, then distance again.... showing its little green "focus-OK" LED none-the-less. The focus-free setting is a partial work-around.
2. There is some barrel distortion on the wide setting - which at the equivalent of 38mm lens on a 35 mm camera - should really not yet occur. It also gets somewhat fuzzy around the edges at this setting. Group pictures focus at the centre - but people at the edges are fuzzy. This could be a depth of field problem, as the camera has only two aperture settings. This may improve significantly in the future as CCD's reduce in size, or Pentax my need to redevelop this 7 element lens with an aspherical lense system.
3. The camera emphasizes white, but I'm trying different saturation settings now.
4. The camera is not usually sold with the remote control - and the one I bought - which officially is the required one for the camera - lacks the remote controlled zoom described in the handbook. Seems there's a difference between intention and implementation at Pentax in this regard.
5. The flash ranges about 2m/6ft - much too short for a group picture in a room - compound this with the faults 1 and 2, and even some 1.3 megapixel cameras do better (less detail hides some of the errors.).
6. The camera has ISO sensitivities of 100 and 200. Many competing cameras have 400 also, which may have helped the flash range.
7. The LCD is rather small - necessarily a compromise of size - but allows one to zoom after the picture is taken - so if you want to check the quality of a picture you have taken - this is OK.
8.I soon bought a second (special) lithium battery, and the short battery life (about 20 pics at maximal quality, full resolution with flash and lcd or 32Mb - half the memory I've installed) is no longer a problem.
Lastly, it would be useful if the camera could be used as a webcam or controlled from a computer.., but cannot, as yet.

Personally, I am a little disappointed at the compromises made by Pentax - I was expecting more when I bought this little device. Its key advantage is small size, its light weight, the zoom, and its friendly and understandable menus that allow one to actually use its tremendous versatility.
The firmware version in my camera is V1.01. I bought the camera in October 2001.
I suggest you try this out with a few of the competing small cameras (and the 430) in different conditions, they all make compromises and this may be the camera you want. Pentax will probably improve this camera rapidly - they are so close to having a true winner.

I am a photographer that likes to use all of the manual aspects of a camera.. I play with depth of field, and slow shutter speeds, pushing and pulling film etc.

PROS:
This camera has been a real joy because it has the three things that I was looking for:
1) Must be tiny...to fit in a jacket pocket easily for roaming..
2) Must be able to go manual for long exposures (up to 15 seconds)
3) Must do well in low light.

It satisfies all of these criteria very well, and I have been generally very pleased with it. Experimental photos are a dream.

CONS: Batteries go pretty quickly, so you have to have a second to swap. Once you've solved that issue, its a joy all around.

I was looking for a good point and shooter. I'd spent a while looking around at what was available and ended up buying a 330 for my company in order to see if it was good enough for me. In the end I bought it's sibling the 430. It's basically the same camera except a 4M pixel ccd instead of 3.3M.

The menus and set up are all superbly easy to use. The display is sharp although there is as the review before me states some issues with macro focusing. The movies lack sound which would be nice. Battery life with flash and display is short but most digicams seem to suffer from this complaint and turning the display off helps a great deal.

If you want a point and shoot that provides a wide range of options and also manual control for everything but don't want to sacrifice picture quality then buy one of these. I'm very happy with mine.

Pentax might not have been first with a compact digi cam but they are top of the heap now.

...if you just like to take pictures to remember stuff and not spend too much... then buy this camera! This camer is just plain ol' good. I reasearched many other cameras (Nikkon 885/775, Cannon S30/S110/S300, Kyocera S3) for about 1 1/2 months before settling on this one. When everything was considered the Pentax blew them all away (except the Cannon S30 which is equally good but MUCH more expensive).

great things in a very small package.
all the bells and whistles I wanted and very easy to use.
manual clear and well done
16 mb card it comes with produces 16 high resol. shots or combined with nice 'movie' feature. . .all very, very easy
64mb card only 35dollars. . .
not what I had planned on. . .hadn't even heard of it before. . .bought on site at store (came with $100 rebate up til June 2002. . .and only 499 in store. . .making it 399!!

After extensive researching internet and comparing a varieties of cameras, including Cannon S110, S300, S40, G2, Nikon 885, Sony DSC-P5 and Olympus D40Z, I finally bought Pentax 330 this Christmas, mainly for (1) its pocket size-"take it and go anywhere" (2) >3M pixels (3) manual controls. I love its size and bring it with me everytime when going to park with my kid. But I must admit that I'm a bit disappointed (1)in-door focus has problem - every two out of ten among my christmas party pictures are out of focus (I had to download and upgrade the firmware from v1.05 to v1.10 later and seemed to get a little bit better); (2)picture is not as sharp as I expected for a 3Mpixel camera; (3)movie mode does not record SOUND, a silent movie only -- what a miss! (BTW, the quality of movie is no comparison to D8/MiniDV camcarder. The movie looks very poor on TV. It is not pentax specific problem, since its resolution is only 320x240 vs 550x475 for D8/DV. Don't expect to replace your camcorder with any digicam's movie)

The default sharpness setting seems to use cheap sharpening algorithm. It's better to set it to soft and unsharp mask filter later.

I bought a pentax optio 330 about a month ago and I just love the little guy! I was considering the Nikon 885 but a sales rep at National Camera suggested this one to me. It is about 100 dollars more but with the mail in rebate it comes down to the same price as the Nikon. He also indicated to me that more customers had complaints about the Nikon and had more problems with the Nikon's menu screen. Well I can't say for sure since I have never used that camera but with my Pentax, I don't think I will ever need to.

I have enjoyed beautiful, crisp pictures with this camera. I took shots of my doll collection, my artwork, and my cat and they all turned out great (once I got used to the different light settings which wasn't too hard). I did take it to my cousin's wedding and I have to say that it didn't work as well for me there. One reason was that I was loathe to use the flash since I didn't like the way the flash looked in my other indoor pics I had taken earlier. I also reasoned that the camera has special "dark room" settings to compensate. Futhermore, the pics on my viewscreen were looking good so I trusted that. Well I wished I had used more flash cause when I uploaded them, most of the pics were blurry. Granted most of them were of people dancing but I wonder if the flash would have helped the focus. The camera does seem to have a problem focusing in dark situations but I am still experimenting with that and I don't think that it is a major problem.

I saw in a previous review that someone mentioned the viewscreen being too small. I have to agree since I can't tell whether or not the pic is blurry based on the screen. But if the screen were any bigger, the camera would be too and that is not what you want in a compact camera.

I love the small size! It fits in my coat pocket and when I have it around my neck it doesn't feel like it is cutting off circulation. It is also cased in stainless steel as opposed to the Nikon's plastic casing which does give me more confidence - although I wouldn't recommend dropping it ;)

Overall it is a great point and shoot digital camera! I would highly recommend! And if the price bothers you - well you won't have to hassle with photo developing services any more now will you?

This little camera is slick. My wife was very hesitant about using a digital camera. However, it only took her about 2 minutes to be completely comfortable with the Pentax 330. This camera is SO easy to use. In addition, it has some nice advanced features such as black&white and sepia settings. The other advantage is its size -- it's absolutely tiny. It fits in a pocket very easily. Picture quality has been fantastic and I've printed several from a recent ski trip -- they look every bit as good as those taken from a film-based SLR. My suggestion would be to buy an extra battery and larger CF card to take more pictures. Other than that, buy it and enjoy. No more film for us!!!

Was skeptical because of size. I am an amatuer photographer, and have had two different dig cams plus dig camcorder that takes stills. Was looking to buy Mavica fd95. Basically talked into buying Pentax Optio 330 by a sales person, who said if I didnt like it I could play with it for two weeks and bring it back. I am not taking it back! The first photo I took looked like it didnt come out right. BUT...we had also bought a photo printer, where you just stick the card in the printer, select the size you want to print, select the picture, and print. WOW!!! I could NOT believe my eyes! I did NOTHING to this photo, except snap it. It was GORGEOUS! The only thing I do not like is the size of the viewfinder and the size of the LCD, but I WILL get used to it. Perfect for carrying in Purse or pocket!