Customer Reviews

Pentax Optio 30 3.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I spent a week researching the internet and photo magazines before deciding on the Optio 30. A major selling point, besides price, was that it uses the much smaller and popular SD card for external storage. I bought a new 256 Mb card for $40 (after rebate). I've had the camera for only three days and have taken over 100 hundred pictures in varying resolution. I haven't printed any photos, but uploaded into a computer they all turned out really well. The camera is easy to hold and the control buttons are simple to configure. The Optio 30 is ready to shoot about 2 secs after powering it up. The case has a metallic finish which will repel minor scratches, and the lens retracts nicely into the body after powering down. I'm pleased with this purchase.

After trying and returning several small digital cameras-Olympus Camedia 395 (poor contrast and SLOOOW), two Fuji Finepix A120s (ghostly blooming), and a Nikon Coolpix 2200 (purple fringeing and lack of clarity)-I've at last found one that takes satisfying pictures!

PROs:
- Image quality is excellent. There are none of the defects of the other cameras I tried. Colours are natural, focus is sharp, and there is no distortion. For one day I had both the Nikon and the Pentax and took lots of identical photos-the Pentax produced a much better result every time.
- Lots of control for those who want it (AE metering, manual focus in addition to auto and fixed, selectable ISO, white balance, saturation, contrast, etc. etc.).
- Functions are easy to select and use. Important ones are on buttons, not menus (e.g. monitor on/off, exposure compensation-both of these buried in menus on the Nikon).
- Red eye is rare, even without the special flash setting.
- The supplied software, ACDSee and FotoCanvas, is just right-easy to use and powerful. What an eye-opener after Nikon's incompetent PictureProject, which is obsessed with an obscure method of arranging photos in collections and has hardly energy left over for worthwhile features.

Speed is average (startup a bit slow, shutter lag reasonable) and so is battery usage if you use rechargeable NiMH. Alkalines are sucked dry in minutes.

CONs
- Manual rather pedestrian, with little explanation of technical features, no tips on how to use them, and no index.
- No video out, which is cheap. I'd rather have this than the gimmicky live histogram-impressive (like those flashing LEDs on 80s stereos). but what use is it?
- Battery/card cover feels as if it's going to fly open if you hold the camera in the wrong way.
- What you see is not necessarily what you get. Unaccountably, the picture on the LCD screen is a bit darker when it's downloaded-easily cleared up by the software, but that shouldn't be necessary. The Nikon was the same, without any way of dealing with it. I didn't notice this mismatch on the Fuji Finepix.

The strengths of this camera FAR outweigh its few weaknesses. The only thing that really matters is that it takes great pictures, and it's easy and fun to use.

I brought this camera because I was looking for super lightweight camera for my hiking and biking needs. I wasn't disappointed in that aspect. This camera is small and light and super easy to used. In fact, if you were looking for one digital camera to introduced one of your older relatives who can't tell the difference between a RAM and ROM, this camera is it.

The camera's 3.2 megapixal is more then enough for most people who don't need poster size photo print out. For 4x6 size, this is a perfect camera. Its uses a SD card, the quality of the photos proves to be quite good and as I discovered, it appears to be a quality camera. The battery life proves to be pretty good and its a camera you can easy jump in and used its options without looking too closely to the instruction book. It only major weakness seem to be that its delay time between the pushing of the shutter and when the picture is taken seem to be little long. It slightly slow. You just have to adjust and adapt to time it right. I also wished this camera came with a remote like many of the Pentax film cameras got.

This camera will served most people quite well as back up camera or if you are just beginning, a perfect introduction to digital photography. I used for hiking and biking. Although its not waterproof or anything, it serves just well as long as you don't take it swimming!

I am an experienced digital camera user, this being my 4th camera following a 1.3mp Olympus (used the thankfully obsolete Smart Media format) 3.2mp Minolta Z-1 and 8mp Minolta A2. I chose the Pentax as a back up to the A2, as the Z-1 was too bulky to serve as a secondary camera while traveling. It also used SD cards and AA rechargeables, which I have a bunch of.

Picture resolution is outstanding, and I have found no major problems with either the autofocus or exposure systems. Picture quality is actually quite close to the Z-1. Using a 1gb SD card, you have about 500 shots available at the highest resolution settings, more than enough to keep anyone busy. This set-up, with a spare set of AA rechargeables (get the 2500 ones) was quite comfortable in a small case on my belt, serving as the back up to my A2.

This camera is also a good choice for back packers, as it is very light and batteries last quite long, limiting the need to carry too many spares. If you get rechargeable lithium CR-V3s, they are actually lighter and last even longer. Alas, this quality caused the loss of this dear little camera, as my girlfriend cast her eye on it and it ended up in her backpack. To make her feel better about it (like I really needed to) I took her Sony DSC-P1 in exchange as my new spare...a real brick compared to the Pentax, and uses proprietary batteries which I hate. Yes yes yes, I know the Minolta A2 uses a proprietary battery, but it is sooooo good that I bit the bullet.

Another viable alternative to this unit is the new Canon A510, which I may get. Uses AAs and SD cards too, and also takes great pics. The Sony will likely end up on Ebay. I hate Memory Sticks too. Slow and expensive.

Bottom line, the Pentax is quite good, and the optics in my opinion are comparable to similar models from Canon and Nikon, and better than Olympus.

This review is likely to be a little different, as I'm stepping down from a full-featured SLR-like digital camera to the compact Optio 30.

My primary reason for buying the camera was to have a second, small portable camera I could keep in my jacket pocket at all times so I could take pictures of sunsets and various scenes at the spur of the moment.

My first impression of the Optio 30 is that it's a little chunkier than I thought it would be. Although the lens retracts into the camera, it's actually quite chunky. However, the camera is fairly light.

When I received the camera, it had no 16mb SD memory card included, which didn't bother me because I already have a 128mb and a 512mb ordered on the way. It holds about 60 images on a 128mb card at the largest photo size and fine resolution. Downloaded images average about 1.1mb per image, which is fairly normal for a 3 megapixel camera.

It took me a little digging around in the manual to get the SD memory card formatted, which is interesting because I'd already been using it for other purposes. Then I initalized the time and date which seemed easy enough.

I found that a 128mb card hold about 60 images at the highest quality setting. Certainly a 256mb card or larger would make more sense for this camera.

The zoom mechanism is fairly noisy and somewhat imprecise. I guess the idea is you get a rough idea of the zoom and crop on your PC later.

The eyeview finder is small and somewhat like looking through a tunnel (reminds me of Nikons! lol!) Focusing on a close object within a few feet results in parallax error, which is to say your framing will be fairly off. Better to use the LCD for close photo framing.

The LCD is bright and very colorful. It is very easy to frame and use the LCD. Perhaps the name of the game is to use the LCD for framing with this camera, as the eye finder doesn't buy you much accuracy unless the shots are somewhat distance.

The flash is somewhat weak and adds a strange color balance problem. However it is usable. I would tend to shoot without the flash, or simply use it on a sunny day as a fill flash.

The menu system has an easy menu version and a more complicated one. The more complicated one leaves me wondering how often I would want to dig through the menus to activate some of the features of this camera. Probably intended to be used largerly as a point and shooter.

The image quality is very good. The camera does not do well in low light situations, but under normal or sunny lighting it performs quite well. The photos are well saturated, good color, and the autofocus seems to work well. Mind you, it's not the result you'd get from a far more expensive camera.

The free software ACDsee and a few others have little interest for me as I have far better photo software already loaded on my machine. Some might find the software useful.

All in all, within it's limitations, its an okay camera. I would not recommend it as a vacation workhorse, but better as an occasional happy snapper.

I will keep it in my jacket to catch the odd photo. I'm not sure I would use it extensively on vacation. We'll see.

UPDATE - I have now owned this camera for two years - and yes - I use it on vacations! It's a great little camera if you can get it second hand. I've taken some really interesting photos with it. The best feature is that it fits in my pocket as I walk about. I have since put a 2gb card which gives me the capacity to take 956 photos! I have since bought a CR-V3 rechargeable battery for it (about $14) and it lasts for 300-400 photos. I take two rechargeable CR-V3's on vacation and I'm good for nearly 1000 photos! Photo quality is very good (not mind blowing) - but still if you can buy one of these used or already have one - keep it!

Hi Folks, I bought two of these cameras and gave one to the spouse. Have been using them for about 4 months, taking several thousand photos. I have extensive experience with amateur-grade film and digital cameras.

When I shop for cameras, I don't get hung up on a brand. I don't care what my camera says on the front of it. I look for specific features that make ME happy.

My requirements for this purchase were, in order: (1) AA Batteries, (2) picture quality, and (3) small size...'cuz big cameras just don't get used by the majority of their owners. The AA requirement cuts you down to a handful of cameras. I don't care, I use my cameras a lot and I don't want to buy expensive proprietary batteries. And when I ditch a camera in a couple of years, I don't want to start over with the battery-go-round. I keep eight AA's charged all the time.

Pros: 100% reliable so far, excellent picture quality, good battery life with NImH, sharp lens, small pocketable package, wide range of options and pre-programmed modes, smooth controls, intuitive menus, seems well-built and sturdy, decent to beautiful flash results, 3 MP is fine for just about anything, EXCELLENT macro mode, remembers all settings during battery changes, lots of information in the LCD display, learning curve about 2 hours for full mastery if you're familiar with cameras and know what to look for. My wife, intensely allergic to anything more complex than point/click cameras, took about 100 pics before getting completely up to speed. But she now has much more control than she had with her old point-and-shoot film camera. And, she RAVES about the Macro Mode, which really is fabulous. This camera is truly an incredible bargain, and a little shopping around saved me about 25% off the standard "discounted" price, with free shipping to boot!

Cons: I have to consider the price in compiling my "Con" list. I don't expect a sub-150-dollar camera to perform like an expensive one. However, the display washes out badly in sunlight; adjustments using the LCD absolutely require that you provide some shadow. For that I downgrade this camera to 4 Stars because it's not perfect. Otherwise, no sound in movie mode, and those are all the gripes I have.

All in all, wonderfully pleased with these cameras.

We have owned this camera for about 2 months now (never owned a digital before). After researching digital cameras on the internet for a while we decided to go with the Optio 30. We definitely wanted some optical zoom and didn't want to spend a lot of money. This camera seemed to fit the bill. The histogram was something that got high ratings from a camera review magazine. We thought it might be over our heads. It, however, is easy to use and works great. The macro mode of this camera also got high reviews, we thought we'd never use this feature, but have had opportunity to and it also works great.

Have printed about 40 pictures at Walmart, using the Kodak picture maker and the one hour Walmart machine both with excellent results.

This camera uses batteries very quickly. I mean within hours. We tried a rechargeable set of Rayovacs from Walmart, they were as bad as Energizers. We then bought some Lenmar DLCRV3 rechargeables, these batteries are the greatest.

We also purchased a Lexar 256mb memory card, as the built in memory is quite small, especially if you set the resolution for high quality pictures (a must I'm told if you are going to print them).

One problem I have found with this camera is while trying to take pictures of my son's football game (at night) the flash is ineffective at the distance I was trying to take the picture (not the cameras fault). When you turn the flash off the camera automatically raises the shutter speed and then we get blurred action shots. If we consulted the manual and messed with the settings we could probably remedy this problem.

Easy to use. 3X optical zoom. Only needs about 3 seconds before you can take another picture. Lots of options. The only thing I didn't like is that there is no sound with the movie mode. Good starter camera for the price, or spare for an intermediate.

This camera was a good choice for me mostly because of it's price, but it has great picture quality, even on the middle resolution setting, and a good zoom. I would suggest a bigger memory card, rechargeable Ni batteries, and a tripod for night pictures. It is very easy to download the pictures to your computer or to take the card to a place that prints digital pictures. In hind sight I would've spent a little extra to get a better looking, sleeker camera. Check these cameras out at an electronics store then purchase online to get the best prices.

I purchased the camera after owing a 1.3 mp camera. After the 1st time of using the camera, my God-daughter borrowed it to use at school. She loves it and so do I so I had to buy a second one. Easy to use, photos are nothing short of great. I learned by using 2300 mAh batteries, and up, you can take loads of flash photos and not have to worry about battery power loss. I wouldn't hesitate telling anyone to get this camera. They would not be sorry.