Pros: Innovative design; Easy to use; 10X zoom optics, bright, good quality; Recent low price tag
Cons: No image stabilisation; 38mm widest focal; Slower AF; Longer time lag; Noiser photos; Limited resolution
The Bottom Line: All is about compromise: Price, performance, features, size/weight, etc. I think the Optio MX is a good compromise and Pentax has made a brave and nice try this time.
ricehigh's Full Review: Pentax Optio MX Digital Camera
In early Nov, when I walked around the street and saw a significant price drop, I got the cam owing to its special and innovative appearance. I got a 1GB Sandisk SD card with it as well (at $350 altogether with a "free" Kenko UV protective filter too, but later on the street price of the MX even dropped to as low as $200 just after one week of my purchase!).
I used it for two weeks for shooting still photos and video clips and my comments are summarised as follows:-
Operations
1. The gun-like design makes the camera a joy to hold but the con is that each time I needed to pull down the grip before I could shoot.
2. The LCD is rotateable to a wide but limited angle, i.e. it cannot be turned all around 360 degrees, as with all other rotateable LCD monitors in this planet. Self portrait is possible and when not in use, the monitor can be rotated back inside the camera back to protect it.
3. The LCD is bright and detailed, with accurate colors. It also has sexy deep purple anti-reflective coating which was proofed to be very valuable for shooting under bright sunlight. I could view the monitor clearly at very bright environment outdoor during the day.
4. The menu system and control buttons are very easy to understand and quite accessible, except that I needed to adapt to use my left hand finger to navigate the four-way joystick cum the Ok button - but the learning curve was fast.
5. The tripod socket is placed near the hand grip and thus when mounted on a pod, it has conflict with the hand grip such that the hand grip cannot be pulled down. The pressing of shutter button and use of zoom control become somehow awkward afterwards.
Still photo quality
1. The lens itself is of high quality, zoom range is good but not wide enough (only at 38mm in film terms). Coating is excellent and the lens' speed is fast, i.e. with large maximum aperture.
2. The photos are suffered from noise even at the lowest ISO speed of 100, but still acceptable. At ISO 200, it is too obvious for use, for my own standard. So, I set it manually to 100 in the second day I owned it.
3. Colour reproduction, metering accuracy, plus reproduction of bright and dark areas are all superb. It's a real surprise for a non-professional digicam.
4. However, the resolution of the photos seem limited, maybe just owing to the limited resolution of the 3M CCD sensor.
5. AF speed is slower than most current DC and the time lag after pressing the shutter release button is quite noticeable. It is still acceptable for normal shooting purposes, though. The startup time delay is fair enough (not too long but not too short neither).
Video quality
1. 40 minutes of 640*480/30fps best quality (3 stars) MPEG-4 movie can be recorded on the blank 1GB card. Longer time can be achieved by selecting a higher compression (lower quality: 2 stars or 1 star).
2. The video is a little bit jumpy and not smooth if compared with DV cam, but it's again is acceptable for me.
3. The microphone is quite sensitive and can record the operation sound of the camera, e.g. when I pushed/pulled the zoom level. Nevertheless, the zoom level has two zooming speeds, touch the level slightly with care at the lower speed can nearly solve the problem.
4. At longer end of the zoom, monopod or tripod is recommended to avoid camera shake. With a pod, the results were far better. There is no Image Stabilisation facility in the cam but I think the IS function cannot replace the function of a pod when shooting video. Instead, it is more useful for shooting still photos at lower lighting conditions, especially at longer focals.
Conclusion
I couldn't get the best quality for both still pictures and movies I took with the Optio MX. But at that unbelieveably low price and for all these features and functions, plus the really good build quality it offers, it is surely a real bargain provided that no demanding quality is required.
P.S. The fate of my MX is: I didn't love my MX as I did with most of my other Pentax gears. A friend of mine saw my MX one time I took photos with him and I let him to play with my MX for quite a while. After that, I send him back my taken photos and shortly he wished to buy one himself. Therefore, I sold the whole package to him shortly after I only owned my MX for two weeks (of course at a considerable lower price). And he is now still very happy with his MX (not mine now :-)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 275 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
Combined high-resolution digital still camera and full-capacity digital video camera 3.2-megapixel sensor captures enough detail to create photo-quali...More at Amazon Marketplace
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