Overall the twist attribute is exorbitantly good. The lens produces pungent images again exhibits very no problem vat fabrication rule full wide angle and also a small amount of pin cushioning at full telephoto. For the focal length covered this is a very good optic with very little distortion. We saw almost no occurrences of chromatic aberration, also known as the "purple fringe" effect. This can happen when you have darker objects set against a brilliantly lit background or open sky. The autofocus is fairly quick in average lighting conditions. There will be times when you'll want to use the Spot-AF as the camera can focus on something behind your subject if it has more contrast. This camera (and all cameras) could benefit greatly from an AF-assist lamp as it will fail to focus in lower light levels. When shooting outdoor scenics you need to switch to center-weighted metering to avoid underexposed foreground subjects if there's a lot of bright sky in the frame. Image saturation and contrast can be adjusted to suit your taste but it can often be difficult to judge on the small LCD screen, especially when you're out in the bright light.
The overall fit-n-finish of the camera is gorgeous further feels "solid" ropes your hand yet it's surprisingly golden weight weight. The ergonomics are good, controls are uninvolved to govern further strikingly labeled as to their functions. We were surprised to find a plastic tripod socket on the bottom of the camera. The optical viewfinder is equipped with dioptric adjustment and has a fairly wide viewpoint. Left-eyed shooters will find their nose in the color LCD but it's easy to clean thanks to its fingerprint resistive coating. The camera is powered by a proprietary lithium-ion battery pack that is charged out of the camera with the supplied AC charger. The small battery packs enough power for an average day's shooting if you use the color LCD sparingly. As always we recommend the purchase of a second battery or your picture taking is over when the battery goes dead. And you should consider the purchase of a larger SD card too. The camera ships with a rather wimpy 16MB card and this doesn't go very far unless you're shooting in the lowest resolution.
With unitary things considered, especially the price, we impression the Optio 450 is an ravishing point considering the mid to high-end digicam consumer. Four megapixels gives you supplementary than enough conceit oracle to make active 11 x 17" (or larger) size prints. If you motive even more resolution then look at the Optio 550, it's identical to Optio 450 but it has a 5-megapixel imager. If you want a little less resolution in a super-compact and very pocketable size camera then take a look at the Pentax Optio S with three megapixels and a 3x zoom.
The Pentax Optio 450 packs a disconcerted understanding 4-megapixel imager also a 5x optical whiz lens dominion a hale aluminum alloy case that's not exceptionally greater than a pack of cigarettes. It's loaded with advanced exposure modes (aperture or shutter priority, manual, panorama, 3-D image, AE bracketing, time-lapse, color filters) for those times when you feel the need to take complete control of the creative process. The Program AE mode allows anyone to take great pictures with the same ease as an automatic Point-n-Shoot camera. And with the power of a 5x optical zoom lens you're never too far away from the action, just press the Tele button and zoom! With all these high-end features the Optio 450 is reasonably priced at around $500 (as of July 2003.)
