Pentax Optio S12 Digital Camera Review

'Pentax Optio S12' is a pocket size, stylish and easy to handle 12 MP digital camera. With tiny, durable and easy to operate features, 'Pentax Optio S12' rocks the chart of Point and shoot cameras. It will fit to any pocket and more stylish than S10 version. It does lack some main function such as image stabilization, zoom in mode and advanced operations. As far handling is concerned, 'Pentax Optio S12' rules the digital camera market.

Number of controls on 'Pentax Optio S12' is very less. You won't see buttons and dials. You can easily access features such as self timer, focus mode and flash options from rear side of camera. Menu button has several options like white balance, contrast, sharpness, quality level, dynamic range and sensitivity. Best feature of 'Pentax Optio S12' is its ability to store settings which includes list of functions of your choice. You get green button at back which serves this purpose and same can be used to turn camera in to automatic mode.

LCD panel is 2.5 inch and captured objects are easily identifiable in bright sunlight. Earlier versions of pentax models lack this functionality. Optical zoom is fast and smooth. 'Pentax Optio S12' gives you 3X optical zoom. Another interesting feature of 'Pentax Optio S12' is its battery life. You can capture up to 375 pictures in day for a single battery charge. When you switch too night mode, picture quality is not satisfactory if you are interested in finer details of captured image. It was disappointing to note shutter speed also.

On point and shoot cameras, manual focus feature is not used often. With 'Pentax Optio S12' performance of manual focus option was below average. Image quality is also at average level. Finer details are missed out.

Quick features at glance...

Ultra compact digital camera.

No complex mode of operations

12 Megapixel CCD

2.5'' TFT Monitor

3x optical zoom: f/ 2.8-5.4 / 7.9-23.7mm

Digital "Shake Reduction"for picture and video modes;

Full automatic mode and 18 Picture Modes

Available in attractive colors: silver, black, pink and metallic blue

21 MB internal memory

Quick Specifications...

Image sizes:

• 12M

• 10M

• 7M

• 5M

• 3M

• 2M

• 1024 pixels

• 640 pixels

Movie clips:

• 640 x 480 @ 30 fps

• 320 x 240 @ 30fps

File formats:

• JPEG

• AVI

• WAV

Lens:

• Approx. 38 mm - 114mm

Image stabilization: No Applicable

Metering:

• Multi-field metering

• Centre-weighted metering

• Spot metering

Shutter speed: 1/2000s to 4s (Approx)

Modes:

• Green Mode

• Full automatic

• Programmed automatic

• Video

• Sound

White balance:

• Automatic

• Daylight

• Cloudy

• Tungsten

• Neon

• Manual selectable

Weight: 110 g without battery

Dimensions: 87 x 54 x 21 mm

If you are looking for digital camera which can easily fit in your pocket and has decent picture quality, then 'Pentax Optio S12' should be your first choice.