Pentax Optio M50 8MP Digital Camera (Pink) Review

I bought the Pentax Optio M50 as a gift.I chose this model for the following reasons:

*It is small and compact enough to always have with you
*It is very stylish (especially for a young girl). We got it in Pink to go with her pink iPod.
*I wanted a camera with a minimum of 8MP which is plenty for home use (I have advanced digital SLRs with 8MP and they take pro-quality images)
*The zoom ratio (5x) was much better than those found on other cameras in it's class (usually 3x)
*I like the feature that automatically detects and exposes for faces (although the "Auto-Smile" feature seems to be a hit-or-miss feature so I don't suggest using it)
*It is a good value for the price

A couple of things to be aware of though:

*There is no optical viewer, you must use the rear screen to compose the image
*The "shake reduction" feature is not true electronic image stabilization, which you can find or higher-end cameras.Instead it raises the sensitivity of the light sensing chip in low light which allows the use of a higher shutter speed at the same time giving you less detail in the resulting photo.Nice feature, but not as nice as IS which reduces or compensates for actual camera shake electronically.

Over all this is a great buy.Just a few years ago a camera like this would have cost at least twice as much.Considering it's features this is a very good value and Pentax is a name that you can trust.



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Digital Camera Labels: Pentax Optio M50 8MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom (Pink),Pentax