Look around you, what do you see. No I don’t mean the girl next door although as a subject like any other she would be challenging. But no I digress we wont go there, so lets look deeper, go on I defy you, what do you see! You can’t see can you, no I thought not, okay let me show you.
Look around, there is colour everywhere, look deeper there is shadow and shade, look again there is movement. Now sit back, wait a while, enjoy the view, what’s happening now, shadows have lengthened, colours are vibrant, beauty is all around you even in urban decay, look for the beauty, record the beauty and what better way to do it than with a digital camera that gives you instant results and instant editing to remove the lamp post from the head of the girl next door.
I love photography and have used Pentax products for many years and still do for that matter but a previous digital compact gave me a liking for the format and so it was that I decided to buy the latest incarnation from Pentax, the Optio A20.
It cost me £125 from Jessops, across the road Jacobs had it for I think £20 more, okay had I bought on line I could have saved more but I do like to see what I’m getting.
So what do I get for my money, a manual the has 195 never to be read pages (To my mind all cameras must be intuitive to use, having a hundred unused obscure features is a waste) a battery with charger, a flimsy wrist strap assorted cables, software (take a tip bin it and let Windows on your computer look after the image output) and of course the camera which is sleek and shiny and I suppose some people would say sexy but inanimate objects cannot be sexy so we wont go there.
Okay but does it take a good picture. No it doesn’t, it helps, only you can take good pictures, the camera alone cannot. Of course having a resolution of 10 mega pixels (A pixel is the building block of all pictures and more pixels mean a sharper image) certainly helps and talking of shaper images the camera comes with a shake reduction feature for maybe when your talking a picture of the girl next door which also aids sharper images as does the provision of tripod socket I the bottom of the camera. Somehow I cannot see myself lugging the tripod around that I use with my 35mm cameras but a small pocket tripod is a definite maybe.
With any camera it is oh so easy to point and shoot but what happens if you wish to be creative or perhaps take pictures of different subjects in different lights well then this little baby will help. The menu mode offers a choice of options that allow the camera to take care of its basic functions. These options vary from fully automatic to modes for night photography, snow (notoriously difficult to capture well), speed and pets. Some options such as pets also offer sub menus where you can select (in this instance) cat or dog and you even have options as to whether or not the animal’s coat is light medium or dark. There is also limited control over exposure values, colour and contrast settings which together with control of shutter speed can help should you be feeling creative.
Talking of creativity the A20 offers a number of innovative image editing features which are worth mentioning for there novelty feature alone especially if you don’t have image editing software of your own. With this camera you basically have the ability to crop the image, rotate the image, add colour filters (an excellent black and white option is included for those mean and moody shots), adjust the brightness level, remove red eye and even add a frame to your picture should you wish. One feature I do like is the light-metering mode that allows you to choose one of three options that determine where the camera sets the exposure. The ability to use spot metering is to my mind a brilliant inclusion but one I fear will not be used or even understood by many and I doubt this review is the place to go into the explanation of it.
Of course as is the way with all modern technology this latest offering from the famed Assai Pentax stable doesn’t just stop at being a digital still camera it also double as a capable basic digital camcorder with full sound capabilities and or a stand alone sound recorder playback and in both options it does perform well.
The lens used is a versatile offering from Pentax offering a focal length of 38mm to 114mm (Figures shown are as 35mm for comparison purpose) that performs very well offering crisp clear images. An electrical operated cover protects the lens and it is there for purposes so don’t ever touch the lens with your fingers especially if they have been somewhere sticky! The lens also offers quite a versatile aperture of f/2.8 to f/5.4
Digital zoom is shown as being 4x magnification, which together with the 3x optical zoom gives a total magnification of 12x. For the uninitiated a digital zoom selects the centre point within the view finder and magnifies but beware as the image quality falls away towards the outside of the image where as an optical zoom allows sharpness of the image any where within the cameras focal length. All in all the performance of the two is better than I expected.
Auto focus is responsive and fast and is easily activated by a light pressure on the shutter button, it is impressive feature and I find it works well even under low light conditions.
Battery life is more than adequate, I did consider buying a spare especially as it uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery which is not readily available everywhere but I didn’t. As it turned out the camera surprised me when after taking 140 plus pictures many with flash the battery indicator was still showing half charge. In the future though I will buy a spare just as a safeguard.
The flash offers five options are offered ranging from the ever-present red eye reduction to soft focus. Beware though that flashes of this type are very self-limiting especially in range. As an example watch a football match on the TV and you will see dozens of flashes going off and do not one will illuminate what the user intends them to as the effective range of most is well below 3.5 metres.
Moving now to composition the camera has a colour LCD monitor measuring 2.5 inches which like most others of its type can be difficult to see in bright sunlight, what the camera does not have is an optical view finder, This to me is a serious omission due to the problems sunlight can give while composing a picture.
Images can be stored within the cameras own memory that is rated at 22MB but beware because in my experience when the camera is set to record the best quality images it will only store around ten images. Okay there is an instant preview facility and it’s easy to delete a picture but the available space is poor so if you buy this camera then but an SD memory card to go with it, the bigger the better. Of course you can always use the camera set to record a lower quality image but a memory card is worth paying a few pounds for.
So what’s it like to use and what do I think about it as a creative tool. Okay let’s start, the camera looks good and its small enough to rattle around in my shirt pocket and it weighs 125g so that’s a good start.
Build quality is overall good but its let down badly by two covers at the side that cover the PC/ AV terminal cover (where the USB cable connects) and the DC input (Where you can plug in the optional mains power supply). These covers while looking pretty are attached to what appears to be a very flimsy nylon hinge. When they are opened which in the case of the PC/AV cover is often they foul badly on the wrist strap if it is attached to the camera and I may stand corrected but I cannot see them lasting long as they just do not appear robust enough to stand the constant impact.
Next is it easy to use, well yes it is if you have a basic understanding of camera as it is only intuitive to a degree but as a basic point and shoot camera it fares well. That said try to get under the surface and become creative without a basic knowledge and it could become difficult. All of the controls are grouped together on the rear of the camera and even with big fingers are easy to operate,
Does it deliver results, yes it does for 95% of the time but try to take a picture of a fast moving object without understanding shutter lag and the woefully inadequate shutter will let you down big time. On the plus side though it offers crisp vibrant pictures and it has a shake reduction feature that actually works.
So is it worth the money, I say yes it is. It’s not a professional camera. It’s a camera aimed for the mass market that performs as I would expect any camera that comes from Pentax to do (and I have used Pentax cameras for over 30 years) but as I have said before it does take a little understanding at times. Would I swap it for my 35mm SLR cameras, no way but it is a close call and it does make an excellent versatile companion to them
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
