Customer Reviews

Pentax Optio 555 5MP Digital Camera w/ 5x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was looking for a 5MP camera with maximum zoom in an small package. The Pentax Optio 555 satisfies all of these requirements and more.

I had a 4MP 4X zoom but was having a hard time capturing action shots of the kids. With the Pentax, I now have a camera half the size, 5MP and 5X zoom and the flexibility to adjust shutter speed to capture the moment. It's no easy task getting the soccer shots of the kids as they're always moving and you need a decent zoom to get close enough. This camera is perfect for that purpose. So far the battery life seems excellent. I fill up my 256MB SD card long before the battery runs out.

I'm very pleased with the quality of pictures. So far I've taken about 100 pictures. It seems to have some difficulty in low-light conditions but it's better than my previous camera so I'm not sure it's the camera's fault.

My only complaint is the 16MB included card is a joke. It seems typical of all mfrs to include such inadequate storage so it's not unique to the Pentax but never the less frustrating. The battery lasts forever but it also seems to take forever (~3 hours) to charge. I'm not usually in a hurry to charge but thought it was worth noting.

I bought the Pentax Optio 555 on 2 November 2003 in Hong Kong.

My number one reason for choosing the 555 was: The longer battery life. My second reason was the 5x zoom, followed by stronger flash and additional features to learn now to use. Saying that, there will be times I wish I had the smaller, lighter, faster Minolta G500... So it was a serious compromise that was not an easy choice - they are BOTH excellent options for a small light 'everyday' camera!

Very basic - but my very first photos are here - nothing special, just really posting them so you can see the image quality - almost all done in P mode... and straight from the camera! http://www.pbase.com/jaqatac/optio555_firstshots_hongkong (this expires 5 Dec 2003)

OK - I have never owned a digital camera before, but I have owned most recently a Nikon F100 and do know a little about film cameras...

I bought it, battery took exactly 3 hours to charge...

While I waited, I read the manual

Oh - and the first thing I did was stop all the annoying sounds by turning them all off in the user menu.
The second thing I did was turn the digital zoom off
I also turned the start up picture off

I do not have a stop-watch - but here are some approximate times. NOT ACCURATE TIMES, NO STOP WATCH!

Sunlight/brightly lit room - I found the shot to shot time to be incredibly good - even with the flash and the pictures again were in focus with excellent lighting...

Dimly lit room - wide angle - 1-3 seconds
Dimly lit room - full Optical zoom - 1.5 - 3 seconds

Totally DARK room - wide angle - 3-5 seconds
Totally DARK room - full Optical zoom - 3-6 seconds

I mean TOTALLY DARK! But saying that - the photos look great, are well lit by the flash and in focus...
With the zoom, it takes a bit longer to focus BUT once it gets it, it is perfect. (how, I do not know)

Here are more accurate times from another review:
Auto Focus LAG Wide angle:
0.8 - 1.4

Auto Focus LAG Telephoto
0.8 - 1.5

Shutter Release LAG Viewfinder
0.1

Shutter Release LAG LCD
V1: 0.1
0.1 - 0.2

Shot to Shot Wide angle
1.8

Frames per second
1.1

I am using the P mode and I quickly set up the User Mode as Gordon (see DP Review Pentax Forum) suggested:
ISO 200
AWB
Low Contrast
Spot Focus

I have a 256 Panasonic SD card (10Mb/Second)
MAX Resolution of 2592 x 1944
At 1 * it is 243 pictures
At 3 *** it is 75 pictures
I am switching between * and *** depending on the subject.
I am looking forward to Panasonic coming out with a 2 Gig card!!!

The user mode with these settings is faster than the P mode by about 1 second in the dimly lit and dark rooms.

continuous mode with no flash - that was really fast too - I did not time this.

PIC - Night Scene Mode - I went out at night on the streets of HK and took three pictures of the same things - P Mode, User Mode, Night Scene Mode. What the Night Scene Mode does is really light up the whole area - I don't know how it does this, but the same photo in P mode was bright lights from the signs, and a bit dark everything else. While with Night Scene the whole photo lights up as if with a flood light - really amazing. At different times I would opt for P, User or Night Mode depending on my desired outcome.

Physical - the case seems sturdy, the buttons are well placed, it is easy to hold and shoot. I like the way it is easy to change what the LCD displays and to turn it off... It is not as [nice] as the G500, but it is a nice functional, sturdy camera!

OK - so this is the quick first impressions... but so far I am really enjoying it!...

I received the camera as a gift a few weeks ago, and expected to spend at least a couple of hours learning how to skate around the various optional settings. The menu driven software made it easy to navigate and I was up and shooting in 15 minutes. The paltry 16MB SD memory card can only hold a few of my 5Meg picutres at a time, so plan on getting at least a 250MB card for it. But the pics are unbelievably sharp and balanced in the auto mode. I haven't even scratched the surface of its capabilities, but the manual mode allows you to experiment with depth of field and exposure ... it used to take a whole camera bag to house all the filters and lenses etc. that this little shirt-pocket camera has on board.
I've owned digital cameras since they first came out, and the Optio 555 is a jaw-dropping, great little powerhouse. Put this one in the "highly recommended" column.

My Canon G1 started showing a CF error at niagara falls, and that really got me p'd off. I mean the G1 is a heck of a camera. With 2 small kids I needed a good replacement and I wanted a small versatile camera. I already had a 3mp and I wanted a compact five mp so I could keep it for a while and get my pro-sumer Big Cam fixed.
I was torn between the Sony Dsc-V1, the Canon S-50 and the S-500 digital elph and this camera. Frankly I chose the pentax because the sony was too big and would be 100 dollars more plus the memory stick. The S-50 would probably be just as good or better but the pentax lens is just better than the smaller canon lens in the S-50. THe G- series lenses are fantastic but they are big and the cameras are big. Also- I was familiar with the canon and the Zoom browser software gets on your nerves repeatedly. So I paid $400 for the pentax 555 at a warehouse club and I bought a 256 SD card at an office supply store for $70.
I have had the camera 3 weeks, about 500 pictures and here is my assessment so far.
Pros= zoom; battery life; flash performance; color; ease of playback; unlimited movie time(only limited by SD card size; Full Manual Control if you want it.

With a 3x zoom you always are left saying "I wish I was just a little closer." th e5x zoom cures that. the battery lasts for days and I was extremely impressed with the flash performance on this camera. NO wash out at any distance. The colors are true as well. Manipulation may cure canon color problems but you cannot beat pentax for out of the camera colors. That movie mode is great- the canon limits to 30 seconds per movie. don't buy this or any digicam as a camcorder- but that is a superior feature really. It is immeasurable how nice it is to get true color right out of the camera. Pentax got this right on this camera.

Cons: slight shutter lag; low light focus and general sharpness issues.

The shutter lag is a little too much on this camera- you find yourself prefocusing so that it goes off instantaneously. Its about 80% of where it should be. The focus/ sharpness issues are correctable so thats ok.

All in all, you most likely can't beat the features of this camera for the price and size. If you want a portable camera- really its thiscamera, the canon, or the sony dscv series (t1-V1). If you want a pro-sumer camera for a couple hundred more- buy the Canon G5.

I highly recomend this camera, it takes great pictures and is very user friendly. The reason we bought this is beacause we have a very expensive minolta 35mm that never took a bad picture, that was until we got a pack of film that was bad and every single picture about 75 or so were all bad. That was not a risk I was willing to take with the birth of my first child. I bought this camera two days before my son was born and had very little time to learn how to use, but I did not need it, it is so easy to use and I took over 100 pictures, every single one came out perfect. The only thing you will need to get is a bigger SD card, I got 2, 256mb panasonic cards. I chose the panasonic cards because that is the type of card it came with. But it was only a 16mb, not enough memory. I looked at several other cameras and I chose this one because it has the aluminum case not plastic and none of the other cameras had 5x optical zoom for this price. The camera is outstanding, great build, great size, great quality!!!

This is my fourth digital camera in as many years. Overall, this is far better than the Olympus Camedia line and the Sony DSC-W1. I haven't had the opportunity to work with Cannon's, and I think that would be the closest contender for wht you can get in this camera.

The pluses of this Pentax are the crisp, extremely accurate colors, which are, if anything, on the bright side. But mostly they are spot on. Secondly, the flash is fast and powerful and most importantly, the focus is extremely fast and accurate even in the flash mode. By contrast, the Sony DSC-W1 is much slower in terms of 'locking-in' the focus in low light settings, as is the Olympus Camedia C-50. As a result, you have to be much, and i mean much steadier to get a good flash shot with the other cameras in low light settings (less so with the Olympus). I am not - i like to whip out the camera when my kids are doing fun things and shoot three or four quick shots indoors, and my Optio shots are consistently great, while the Sony's are such a blur that many get
deleted.

Another plus is the battery. While I had selected the Sony b/c i thought i would prefer the simplicity of being able to recharge AA's anytime, or buy replacements, i found the Pentax battery extremely long lasting - something like their promo literature says, along the lines of 500-600 shots. since it is lighter than 2 AA's, the camera overall is lighter than most running on 2-AA's.

I will say, however, that it is a bit of a hassle having to carry to Pentax battery charger, when if you use the Cannon or Sony you just need to take the standard AA Ni-Mh charger, which i take along anyway for flashlights etc. So now i often have 2 chargers, and thats a pain.

Another big plus is the very quick record time for the typical full 5 mp high resolution photo. My very unscientific method of using my watch stopwatch indicates its about .3 seconds, which was definitely faster than the Olympus or Sony. However it compares to other cameras, its the fastest I've ever experienced, and i've never felt slowed down even in some river rafting action moments.

The next thing I really like is purely subjective - the size of the lens is at least double the diameter of any compact 5 mp camera.
Now that is completely subjective, but my engineering background tells me that if you double the amount of glass that light passes through, you have reason to believe you will be improving the optical clarity of your images. somehow, for all the pictures i've blown up to 5 x 7, it seems like the Pentax photos are crisper with better color - could this be why?

Another plus - excellent closeup features. With 2 macro settings, I have always been very pleased with every kind of closeup.

The drawbacks are all important to me - but when it comes time to pack a camera, unless i need the wide angle lens of the Sony DSC-W1, this Optio is hands dwon my favorite.
Drawbacks:
- Movie mode is an embarassment to digital photography! try playing 320x240 on your computer and you will get eye strain! The movie looks like a moving short-cut! Check out the Sony or Kodak (and possibly some Cannon's) - they offer a resolution of 640x480 which is essential if you want to enjoy any movie clips on your computer.

- the proprietary download cable is another insult designed simply to make you buy another Pentax product. Again, take a lesson from Sony, which uses the standard mini-USB to USB cable for downloads rather than the Pentax-proprietary to USB cable. If you lose that cable on the road, you have no way of downloading your photos and you are jammed until you can mail order another from Pentax. If they would only have the courtesy to let you use the standard cable as Sony does, you could go to any electronics store, or use a friends. Plus, if you carry a portable hard drive or some such thing that uses the mini-USB to USB, you will already have the download cable, while with Pentax you must carry 2 cables.

-limited wide angle viweing. the Sony has noticably better wide angle viweing, something like 28 mm, vs something like 35-50 mm in this camera, Sony also has a screw on wide angle adapter which this camera does not.

- its time for Pentax to update the viewfinder. I'm sure they are working on it, but at least another .5 inches would help this camera ALOT.

- increase the size of the font of all the info in the viewfinder. All the newer cameras with the larger viwfinders using larger font as squinting to read critical information is just not fun.

Thats my take - this camera is far better than some of the competitors, and I hope Pentax is listening and will make some improvements, as i love this extremely functional camera now, but can't wait for the next model!

I purchased an Optio 555 in November 2003. I read the instruction manual on the airplane on the way to Hawaii.

Problems: As I was shooting pictures using the zoom frequently outdoors, the camera would "lock up" and I had to turn it off to unlock it. Must have had a software problem. The pictures were very good within the limits of the camera.

Upon returning home, I exchanged the camera for a new one. The camera shop was very helpful. The second camera functioned OK without any software problems. I was not as happy with the picture quality in the second one. I don't know if the meter was not as accurate or the white balance was not working very well. Indoors, the color was not accurate or washed out

I have returned this to the camera store and will start my search over again.

I think that the camera features and ability to take good pictures is very good. I think this is a quality control problem. Not like Pentax normally. Make sure you take pictures in a variety of conditions using all the functions within the time limits of the camera store's return policy just in case you have the same experience I had.

On paper this is a good choice if all works well. The 5 MP and 5X lens are what I wanted. I haven't got a clear choice in what to buy in a compact package like this. The software provided made it very easy to download pictures into a PC and do some editing.

This is billed as an upgrade to the earlier Optio 550, and when my much used & much appreciated 550 went over a cliff with a grad student (the student survived, the camera, alas, did not)I went straight out and ordered a 555. Good news/bad news. Good news is that I find the 555 has all of the things that I loved about the 550 -excellent resolution, remarkably good automatic exposure even in very weird lighting situations, the VERY nice 5x optical zoom that has allowed me to get some really good "up close & personals" with my study birds, and downright AMAZING batery life (I took my 555 off for a week in Wales, filled up a 256 Meg card with pix -many using flash- & STILL had plenty of battery when I got home.)It also seems very rugged & forgiving (although I am keeping it away from cliff-diving grad students!. SO, what's the bad news? To be honest I don't see much of a difference bewteen the 550 & the 555. The lens is still slow coming out, there is still a noticeable lag between pressing the shutter release & the picture actually taking, so this definitely ISN'T the camera that you want if split-second timing is critical. Other than that however I would say that if you want a really light-weight high resolution field camera with a good lens, look no further (DO get a big memory card however, you will be eating up a lot of bytes very quickly).

I recently purchased a Pentax Optio 555 (not here though) after reading the reviews on Amazon. This is a great camera! It has everything. I love it. However it would not download to my PC using the USB cable so Customer Service recommended I send it to them to check it out. BAD Mistake. I didn't have the camera in my possession a week when I sent it in. Then they had my camera three weeks before I got upset at their lousy customer service that concluded there was nothing wrong with my camera. I finally got it returned to me but it still won't download to my PC so I use a card reader. The camera is great but customer service is terrible!

So far my photos seem ok, I'm no expert but I've had several digital cameras and some have taken pictures too dark or washed out. This one takes nice pictures, the color is good and indoor photos are as good as any film camera I've had.

I got a fast 512mb sd card and it makes a huge difference in the speed of taking pictures, even smaller jpg is noticeably faster, tiff is about 10 times faster. (I had a Sandisk 512mb prior, now I have the Sandisk Ultra... big difference and worth the extra cost)

The camera is not as sleek as the canon's I've had and love and it doesn't seem as rugged, though that might just be the feel of the finish. It is a little larger than many 5mp cameras but not heavier. I like that you can zoom in movie mode and the length of the movie is only limited by the size of the card.

The biggest problem is the view finder is way off if you're taking photos of something within 15 feet. It gets better as you go out, but closer shots have to be done via the screen to get the actual shot you want. The battery seems to last a long time. I don't take that many photos, maybe 50 a month, but I'll go a month of showing the photos and letting it sit in my hand bag and not have to charge the battery.

I've had mostly Canon Powershot and loved the small, sleek and rugged feel. But the more I use this camera the more I like it. I've had real good experience with Pentax customer service too.