Pentax Optio 550 Digital Digital Camera by Experts, Pentax Optio 550 Digital Digital Camera Reviews, Pentax Products

Overall the wienie complex is plenty good. The lens produces sharp images and exhibits radically clear keg detraction 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 excellent besides feels "solid" consequence your aid yet it's surprisingly coruscating consequence weight. The ergonomics are good, controls are pushover to control also remarkably 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 whole things considered, especially the price, we palpation the Optio 550 is an charming emphasis as the high-end digicam consumer. Five megapixels gives you more than enough view the call to eventuate 13 x 19" (or larger) size prints. If you don't predilection that much resolution but still want a pocket-size camera then take a look at the Pentax Optio S with three megapixels and a 3x zoom.