Optio E70, super-slim and idiot proof
By Gareth Powell
Pentax has a new digital camera called the Optio E70 which is colorful, super-slim. And idiot proof. With this point and shoot camera photography gets even simpler.
The Optio will be released next month and it has everything you need to take remarkably good pictures without having to know very much about the technical end of photography. You merely have to concentrate on framing the picture and pressing the button at what Henri Cartier Bresson referred to as ‘the decisive moment.’
This is helped on the Optio by largish control buttons. It has 10 megapixels which is more than enough and a 3X wide zoom lens (equivalent to 35mm-105mm and this is optical not digital which is important.) That zoom is to many photographers is pretty close to ideal.
Note that arguably the greatest photographer of the last century, Henri Cartier Bresson did not know about zoom. He only ever used a 50mm lens. So this length of zoom puts you one up on him and is, indeed, suitable for almost every shot you could envisage. This is certainly true if you are taking pictures, as it were, on the run and do not have time for a lot of fiddly controls.
One of the features which is so attractive about the Optio E70 is that it will take AA batteries. You are on holiday in Nong Khai, a small place right in the north of Thailand where the road bridge goes over the Mekong to Laos. Your batteries go flat and you need to recharge them. Lots of luck, Charlie. But if you digital camera can take AA batteries you are away with the fairies. There is no place so remote, so uncivilized, so backwards as not to stock AA batteries.
There is a fair amount of technology built in to the camera but it need not concerned the user. For example, Auto Picture mode — the one you should go for on a camera like this — automatically selects from seven shooting modes for the best picture in any situation.
It also has a form of shake reduction which does not mean you can be careless but it will help for better shots.
Officially we are told:
When recording still images, the Optio E70’s new Pixel Track SR (Shake Reduction) mode effectively compensates for camera shake by processing the amount of image blur with a dedicated ASIC. Pixel Track SR tracks motion blur at the pixel level and calculates blur volume in real time. After exposure, the recovery filter centers the motion effect around each pixel to compartmentalize the blur. Then, an adjustment filter sharpens the pixels, to remove the blur effect. Pixel Track SR results in sharp images without adding high ISO noise.
If you want compartmentalized blur plainly this is a good thing. If you know what it means, which the writer does not.
There is also Advanced Face Recognition which is a damn silly idea on a camera but makes it sound more complete. The same is true for Smile Capture and Blink Detection. They may sound like a good idea but they make never-no-mind if you have your eye in for taking good pictures.
The Optio E70 has a 2.4 inch color LCD monitor with about 112,000 dots of resolution. Which is very good but still does not solve the problem of photographing in seriously bright sunlight. There is, as far as is known, no screen that can handle that situation nor there is any add-on that will help. If you shooting in seriously bright sunlight.
(An example: Bondi Beach where it is 70 degrees as this is written and will be 90 later in the day and the beach will be strewn with naked English backpackers going bright red in the sun. When it is that bright you just point the camera in the general direction, take as many shots as you can, and the sort it out in editing.)
For fashonistas the Optio E70 will be available in champagne gold, deep blue and red. (Personally I think that damn silly. If I am taking pictures I do not want a camera that attracts attention. Matte gray would be the color I have in mind. Pentax disagrees.)
This camera is designed for the ham-handed klutz with few motor skills — the writer — in that the camera’s shutter release and other control buttons are larger than normal.
It is amazing to note that this camera will also take video. And that it has a panorama mode to compose a single panoramic picture from three images which is a neat trick and results in some stunning images.
There are also idiot features on the camera you would do best to ignore. Favorite is:
Frame Composite function offers 90 decorative digital frame selections to embellish captured images.
What a daft idea. Probably came from someone in the marketing department.
Price will be $139.95 which is the way marketing departments spell $140.
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