Hope This Helps You: Pentax Optio W60

Monday, May 25, 2009

Pentax Optio W60

I am not a techie person. I am also not a photographer eventhough I love taking pictures. So this review will be based on a consumer's point of view.

Let's start with what I liked about it:
1) It's a very handy and compact camera.

2) It's voice recording quality is great. And the video quality is also good.

3) It's battery life is ok. I guess you can buy an extra one if you'd be using it for several days w/o charging.

4) It has many new modes (aside from the usual automatic, program, night scenes, portrait, landscape, etc. it also has beach, flowers, moving kids, pets, moving subjects, fireworks, food and has different modes for underwater pictures, underwater videos and taking black and white pictures).

5) You can even already choose a border and shoot a picture using that as frame. Or you can choose a picture and add a border to it and save it as another file right on the cam. Just like what you do with a cellphone.

6) It has a face and smile detector and can be set to take pictures automatically once it detects a smile.

7) It also tells you that "a closed eye has been detected" after you take a picture (although it detects chinky eyes as closed eyes as well, hehe)

What's not to like?

1) The pictures on automatic or P mode, or the usual modes are either so-so or grainy at best. It takes better pictures without a flash and with natural light.

2) The display screen fogs for a while when you use it in water. It clears up after a while and doesn't affect your pictures but it can get you feeling anxious if water has seeped in.

3) The video doesn't have a zoom, but if you zoom it in picture mode first and then switch to video, it records in zoom just fine.

4) It can only be submerged up to 4 meters (unlike the Canon D10 which you can use down to 10 meters). Then again, it's not like we'd ever really get past 4 meters since none of us dives.

5) Sometimes, when using underwater or when the cam is wet, water drops distort images by reflecting light.

My official opinion. It's a great handy cam for when you really just want to document what's happening and the waterproof feature will be a plus. And for its current SRP of P20,000, it's also very reasonably-priced. If there are buyers of first-time digicams, i'd highly recommend this one if they're not after really crisp photos. I prefer its sport and night modes which seem to take better pictures.

For sample photos we've taken with the cam we've named Gabrielle: