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Pentax Optio S40 4MP Digital Camera with 3x Optica
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Rating: 4/5 from 11 reviews A mighty mite of a cameranice little cameraI chose this camera over the S4/S4i due to the fact that it uses AA batteries. (I have rechargable batteries up the wazoo, thought that made the best sense...) Well, I've only had the camera for several days, and my initial impression is that battery life is poor. I did have lowered expectations about the power supply, and this camera failed to even meet those. I suppose I'll just have to live w/ the fact that I'll be changing batteries often. Otherwise, I really like the camera. It's built like a tank, really easy to navigate the menu systems, takes decent pictures, is only VERY slightly larger than the S4, and is priced 100 bucks below the competing Canon 4megapixed compact model. (although, due to numerous complaints about pentax quality control, I did pick up an extended warranty which kind of negated the price savings) UPDATE 6/6/04 Contrary to so many others, this is one great little cameraWhile walking thru Costco this morning I saw the Pentax Optio S40, it really looked great, I,ve owned quite a few Pentax Products and always found them to be well done with few exceptions, the S40 is no exception. In a very impulsive mood I bought it, took it home, knew nothing about it, but was glad to see it uses AA cells, I did not read the manual, I inserted (2) fully charged 2200 milli ampere hour AA cells and my own 256 meg card, then started shooting pictures. The results were superb, the color is excellent, required no correction at all, I took about 200 shots, the batteries are still going strong. True, on the screen, it looked like they could be sharper, when printing they were beautiful, ,,,, Since then, I have been reading not such great things about the S40, I disagree with all, this is a first rate, beatifully made machine that is just a joy to use, I am going on a vacation shortly, the D40 will be with me. Coul be I am lucky and got the best D40 ever made, I doubt that, I cannot recomment the camera more enthusiastically, I think I should read the instruction manual now, it could help even more | ||||||||||||||||
The photographic results are quite impressive. Certainly on par with my other digital camera which is the (much larger) Sony DSC-F707, though the slightly lower resolution (4mp to 5mp) would likely show on an 8x10. The viewfinder doesn't show the full size of the scene being framed on the LCD screen, but I believe this is true of most digicams.
The telephoto works smoothly, and the LCD screen provides a clear and smooth look at the scene being framed. As with most LCD displays, it becomes less useful in bright sun.
The camera is easy to set up and its menu system is intuitive and logical with a surprisingly large array of photographic options. It can also be used as an auto focus point and shoot camera with good results as my 12 year old daughter did recently on a school trip. Subsequently she spent a bit of time learning the camera, and now navigates the menus, etc., with ease.
I'm using a 256mb Simpletech Secure Digital (SD) Pro-X High Speed card which has a much faster (10MB/sec) transfer rate than a standard SD card. The faster write speed frees the camera for its next shot much more quickly, and you won't believe how fast it transfers 256mb to a PC over a USB 2.0 (separate USB 2.0 reader needed) connection - whew!
I also purchased the Pentax Optio Warranty Extension which gives this camera a full three years of coverage. I figured my family will be using this camera for at least that long.
All in all, this is an excellent and fully featured camera in a very small package.