The Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera is the leader of the Optio pack. The very compact 8 megapixel camera is packed with features, including a CCD-shift image stabilization mechanism. A 2.5 inch LCD and 3x optical zoom round out the top specs of this camera. So, is the A10 is as "Advanced" as the A in its name implies?
Viewfinder/LCD
The A10 doesn't leave any room for an optical viewfinder, so you're stuck with the 2.5 inch LCD. No worries, since the 232K pixels of the screen provide a sharp, color accurate display. It's not completely fluid while panning the camera moderately fast, but it is adequate. The LCD was a little hard to see in full sunlight. Even with no optical viewfinder, you can toggle the display completely off using the Ok button. Continued presses of the Ok button present varying amounts of information, with the most informative display showing the mode, flash status, Shake Reduction status, battery status, image resolution and quality, white balance setting, metering mode, ISO setting, and a live histogram.
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Zoom Lens
The 3x optical zoom lens on the Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera has a focal length range of 7.9mm - 23.7mm (35mm equivalent of 37.5mm - 112.5 mm). The aperture range of the lens is f2.8 - f/5.4.
Shooting Modes
On the Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera, you can shoot a single frame, with a 10 second timer, with a 2 second timer, in continuous mode, and with a remote. If you have the optional remote, you can trigger the shutter on a 3 second delay or immediately.
Shake Reduction (SR)
Shake Reduction is Pentax' name for their optical image stabilization technology. A dedicated processor crunches the data from some internal gyros to determine now to adjust the CCD shift mechanism to provide image stabilization. A button on the top of the camera enables the SR "preview" so you can see the results of the image stabilization on the screen.
Focus Modes and Focus Ranges
The TTL contrast detection 5 point auto focus has a range of 1.15 feet to infinity in Normal mode, 4.7 inches to 1.64 feet in Macro mode, and 2.36 inches to 5.91 inches in Super Macro mode.
While shooting, you can choose between standard Auto Focus, Macro, Super Macro, Pan Focus, Infinity Mode, and Manual Focus. By default, the camera is set to a multiple area focus, but you can also choose Spot focus, and Tracking AF. The tracking focus is a nice feature that is automatically enabled in certain shooting modes (like Pet mode). Once auto-focus is achieved with a partial press of the shutter, the AF point will follow the object that it is focused on (within reason). The idea is that a moving pet will be "tracked" with the Tracking AF.
Flash
Pentax claims that the flash has a range of 5m when at full wide angle mode and 2.5m when shooting at full telephoto. You can set the mode to Auto, Disabled, Always On, Red-eye reducing Auto, Red-eye reducing always on, and Soft Flash (lower intensity).
Memory Media
24MB of internal memory and an additional slot that accepts SD memory
Image and Movie File Formats
Still images are stored in JPEG format. Movies are stored as AVI (MPEG-4 DivX) files.
Connectivity
USB 2.0, A/V out, and DC in
Power
Power is provided by a 710mAh rechargeable lithium-ion battery (D-LI8). The battery can be charged in the camera, by placing the camera in the cradle. If you have a spare, or want to take the battery out of the camera, the included cradle has a slot where a single battery can be inserted. Charging time was around 100 minutes.
Battery life was not amazing. I got around 100 shots of "real world" use -- lots of reviewing images, deleting, and checking out the features of the camera.
EXPOSURE
As the top of the Pentax Optio line, the Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera is pretty well loaded with features. There isn't a shutter priority or an aperture priority mode, but you get a Program Auto mode that gives you a lot of flexibility with the settings. The standard Auto mode actually chooses between Normal, Night Scene, Landscape, and Portrait modes. A small icon appears after a partial shutter press to show you which one it has picked. If you want to access the other shooting modes, just press the Mode button to enter the Mode Palette. From here, you can choose Landscape, Flower, Portrait, Candlelight, Surf & Snow, Sport, Pet, Text, and Food modes.
Movie Mode
To enable the movie mode on the Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera, you'll need to enabled it via the Mode Palette. You can capture movies, with sound, at 640x480 and 320x240 at 30 frames per second. You can capture movies as long as you have storage space. The Shake Reduction is enabled by default during movie capture and you can't use the optical zoom.
Metering
With the Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera, you get three light metering modes. The default is a multi-segment metering mode that evaluates the entire frame and determines exposure that way. If you need more control over metering, you can also choose a Center-Weighted mode or Spot mode. Center-weighted only evaluates the center of the frame, while the Spot mode evaluates a smaller spot in the center of the frame.
White Balance (WB)
With several preset white balance settings and a way to set a custom white balance, the Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera should have the white balance covered. The presets are Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten Light, and Fluorescent Light. Switch to Manual mode to set your own white balance by placing a white target in front of the camera and pressing the "Green" button. The Auto mode does a good job in mixed lighting conditions.
Sensitivity
The Pentax Optio A10 Digital Camera provides a pretty standard range of ISO (sensitivity) values. In Program Auto, and most other shooting modes, you can select Auto or ISO values of 50, 100, 200, and 400. When you're in Candlelight mode, the camera will shoot at ISO 800, if needed. With the A10, noise performance was good at ISO 50 and 100. If you don't want visible noise in your images, I would try to avoid anything higher. If you do print at 4x6, then ISO 200 images will appear just fine at a normal viewing distance.
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