Pentax Optio M60

...handed to me is the Pentax Optio M60 and as you read on you will find that this little digital camera is a real breath of fresh air. For months now I have been handed very expensive digital point and shoot cameras that claim to be able to perform miracles but they never seem to rise to their supposed capabilities.

The megapixels are getting higher and higher which is really just wasted because the tiny sensors in these point and shoots ...
...shoot.

Pentax are one of the original so called big 5, the 5 best known names in the camera market, along side the likes oc Canon, Nikon, Olympus and the now collapsed Minolta which has recently been taken over by Sony, well not exactly taken over but Sony design their DSLR cameras around the old Minolta workings which allows the old Minolta lenses to work on the new Sony bodies, anyhow, I digress.

Pentax having been ... more

As I am sure most Ciao members will now know, I am a professional photographer but as well as taking pictures I also hold photography seminars at my local camera club and over the last few years I have become somewhat of a target for sales persons asking me to try out their latest digital cameras and give talks and written reviews on them.

I figured a couple of years back if I was going to be testing out all these cameras and doing reviews anyway then I may as well be posting them on Ciao and Dooyoo and making some money for charity which as you well know is what I do now.

The latest camera to be handed to me is the Pentax Optio M60 and as you read on you will find that this little digital camera is a real breath of fresh air. For months now I have been handed very expensive digital point and shoot cameras that claim to be able to perform miracles but they never seem to rise to their supposed capabilities.

The megapixels are getting higher and higher which is really just wasted because the tiny sensors in these point and shoots cannot make proper use of them, the built in anti-blur systems are promising to remove blur from pictures leading people to believe they can get great shots every time which of course is not true and the things like smile activated shutter release and facial recognition are leading people to believe that this makes the camera a better option when quite frankly it doesn't.

What a good camera needs is simply a decent level of megapixels (6 or above), some form of optical zoom (3X or above), the ability to allow the user to alter shutter speeds and apertures and of course the ability to produce good quality images, I say good quality rather than great quality because if you want great quality then quite simply you need a DSLR not a point and shoot.

Pentax are one of the original so called big 5, the 5 best known names in the camera market, along side the likes oc Canon, Nikon, Olympus and the now collapsed Minolta which has recently been taken over by Sony, well not exactly taken over but Sony design their DSLR cameras around the old Minolta workings which allows the old Minolta lenses to work on the new Sony bodies, anyhow, I digress.

Pentax having been around for so long have seen and done it all and it shows in this great little point and shoot camera, it has 10 megapixels (more than enough), a 5X zoom (more than enough) and it offers some great user settings that will keep even the most avid amateur very happy and what's more it actually produces images that you can be proud of and that look like they have been taken by a much more expensive unit.

The look and the feel of this camera also give the impression that it would cost a lot more than the £100 that it does, the body is all aluminium rather than the plastic offerings from most makers and it feels very solid and reassuringly tough in the hand. It was the first thing that really got me excited about this point and shoot, that it actually feels like a real camera and not a kids toy as so many others out there do. although it is very strong feeling it is still very light and also still small enough to fit in the average shirt pocket or it is certainly small enough to fit neatly into your handbags girls. The body is very compact, measuring 95 x 55 x 23.5mm, and extremely light, weighing only 130g and that is including the battery and the memory card.

Ok so having mentioned that this unit costs only around £100 I should also say that because of this there are a few things missing that some of the slightly more expensive cameras always offer, gone is image stabilization for still images although there is still a digital shake reduction for the video mode, gone also is the ability to manually set exposures a thing I would have liked to have seen included but most amateurs would not miss. It also has a zoom range from 36-180mm so you lose out on the ability to shoot wide angle that a lot of more expensive point and shoots can offer, that is about the only downfalls of this unit though and I have taken care of them in one paragraph, so now on to what is good about the Pentax Optio M60.

As far as everyday users are concerned the biggest advantage of this camera would certainly be its ease of use, the menu system is so easy to navigate and understand it is childs play, in fact the menu system could even be mistaken for something you would find in a kids camera, it has a real cartoon look to it but do not let that put you off as it is very informative whilst being so simple to use. one of the things I was very impressed with was the cameras built in face detection with blink detection, it works superbly which cannot be said for this function n many point and shoots and I was very impressed with the portraits I did using this function.

This unit also offers a full range of metering options including spot, centre-weighted and multi-zone, 6400 ISO maximum sensitivity and adjustable saturation, sharpness and contrast, these are functions that you would not find in some point and shoot cameras costing twice what this one does. Also included in this camera are a wide range of preset options from the usual portrait, landscape, sport and night scene to the less usual active children, fireworks, food and pets, with pets you can even set the cameras sub settings in pets to select the colour of your pets coat.

Away from all the presets you also of course have the good old auto mode for those who just want to pick up the camera point it at something and start snapping. Usually the auto functions on point and shoot cameras never really get it right and the things like white balance and exposure tend to be out a bit even if it is just slightly but this little cameras auto mode makes a brilliant job of getting the image right or as close to right as can be expected without human intervention, the only time I saw the camera produce poorer images on auto was when shooting in bright sunshine but then this is the worst time to be taking pictures anyway and some great professionals still struggle to get their images right in bright sunlight so I will let it off with that.

This camera is not the fastest in the start up or auto focusing departments but again you have to take into consideration its price, it will start up in three seconds and its auto focusing time is only marginally slower than the Panasonic LX3 which costs nearly three times as much. The time between shots sits at around 4 seconds which whilst being much, much slower than a DSLR is only about 2X slower than the point and shoots in the £200 range so again it depends what your expectations are as well as your budget. The auto focus on this unit gets it right even in very low light although again the lower the light the slower it focuses so do not expect to be snapping every few seconds if the light is not great.

On to the image quality which as I stated earlier is very good, it is especially good in great light and of course not so in poorer light but welcome to the real world, you are never going to find a point and shoot camera for £100 that will capture great images in poor light it just does not happen that is why professionals like myself use DSLR`s costing nearer £1000 than £100 and lenses that cost about the same again. Having said that though the images from this camera are free from most annoying things that digital point and shoots throw up, for example the lens gives very little barrel distortion and the softness found around the edges of the images was very minimal. When cropped or zoomed the chromatic aberration in some images becomes quite noticeable but as most point and shooters are quite happy to print their images at a basic 7X5 or maybe 10X8 this does not really throw up any real problems.

The ISO settings in point and shoot cameras tend to throw a lot of noise into the images when they are set to 400 or above to enable shooting in poorer lighting but with this little camera I found even the images shot at 800 ISO had very little signs of noise or at least not so much that a simple noise reduction program on your PC or laptop couldn't remove. The colour reproduction in the images was also very good although the ones taken in poorer light lost a bit of their edge and the colours that seemed to be very bright through the lens did not show their full brightness in the finished images. Overall though, when taking into consideration the low cost of the unit I was more than happy with the images.

IMPORTANT SPECIFICATIONS

Resolution: 10Mp CCD

Sensor size: 1/2.3in

Sensitivity: ISO64-6400

Storage: Built-in Memory (approx. 36.5MB), SD/SDHC

Aperture: f/3.5-5.6

Zoom: 5x Optical

Monitor: 2.5in LCD 230,000 dots

Focus type: 9-point AF, Spot AF, Auto tracking AF

Macro: 10cm

Metering: Multi, Centre-weighted, Spot

Exposure Compensation: Yes ±2EV(1/3EV steps)

Shutter Speed: 4sec-1/2000

Flash Modes: Flash-on, Flash-off, Red-eye reduction, Soft Flash

Flash Range: Wide: 0.2-4.4m, Tele: 0.6-2.8m

Drive Modes: One shot, Self-timer, Continuous Shooting, High Speed
Continuous Shooting

Power: Lithium-ion battery

Interfaces: USB2.0

Dimensions: 95×55×23.5mm

Weight: 130g

OTHER THINGS OF NOTE

The battery on this unit is a lithium Ion rechargeable which is unusual for such an inexpensive unit but it is a great thing to have, read almost any review on a camera that still uses AA batteries and you will find that the battery life span is the most common complaint. The battery in this will allow around 350 photos and then you simply recharge so no further outlays of cash for batteries and of course as you are shooting digital there is no outlay for film so once you have this camera and a memory card all you have to pay for is printing unless of course you have your own printer than photography is free.

It should also be noted that although as with every point and shoot camera you will get red eye in your images from the flash when shooting in poor light it is worth saying that the red eye reduction in this camera is actually quite good and it reduces it enough so that a second or two in whichever program you favour will remove the red eye instead of it taking an age when the whole eye is virtually red.

The other things that make this a great buy at only £100 is the macro ability in it is superior to the macro capabilities in a lot of point and shoots at twice its price although you still have to be realistic and not expect it to compete with macro lenses on DSLR`s costing hundreds of pounds, and the high speed continuous shooting mode, although not particularly high speed will allow you to capture moving objects without too much trouble as long as you use it in good outdoor light otherwise it is less than useless.

TO SUM UP

The long and the short of it is that if you have only around £100 to spend then you will struggle to find a camera that offers better final images than this one, add to that the fact that it has a higher zoom than most in its price range and it has the now obligatory ten megapixels, why wouldn't you buy it? Even if you are a person who bases every buying decision on looks or size alone then again you will not be disappointed, this camera is a nice looker, it comes in black, silver and blue at the moment although I am sure a red or pink one will be available at some point and it is small and very lightweight so unless you are looking for the point and shoot with all the added extras then this is the one for you and my advice to you if you are looking for a camera that can do everything then you do not want to be spending a fortune on a point and shoot that will ultimately fail to impress you want to be buying a DSLR or at least a bridge (superzoom) camera.

Throughout the review I have commented on this unit costing only £100 but obviously this depends on where you purchase it from, simply Google the cameras full name and you will find many offers on it including one that I saw this morning from UK Digital cameras for this unit in red (told you there would be a red one) for only £103, there was also one last week for £98.99 which I can no longer find!

MY SCORES

LOOKS - 8/10

BUILD QUALITY - 9/10

EASE OF USE - 9/10

IMAGE QUALITY - 8/10

FUNCTIONS AND FEATURES - 7/10

VALUE FOR MONEY - 8/10

OVERALL - 8.5/10

Thanks for reading.

© thebigc1690  

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