Pentax Optio W30

Reviewed June 2007

Introduction

Go to the beach, or sailing, or spend a lot of time poolside, or live in a rainy area? The Pentax Optio W30 may be ideal: it is waterproof, and can be dunked down to 3 metres (9.8 ft).

Metallic silver with a satin finish, the W30 offers a 7.1 megapixel resolution, a 2.5-inch LCD monitor, and a 3X internal zoom lens, all of it in a remarkably slim and slightly elongated and smooth shape.

The top right of the camera supports both the microphone and the speaker, both positioned next to the power switch, which indicates that the camera is On by a glowing green LED at its centre.

The shutter release, a two-stage system that performs auto focus and auto exposure when pressed halfway, is the elongated button on the right. Like all the other controls, the shutter release is waterproof which makes it quite stiff, making it a bit more difficult than normal to detect the half-pressed position.

Placed to the right of the 2.5-inch, 115,000 pixel monitor, the zoom control is able to change the focal length from () wide to () telephoto in just over 1 second. And when the W30 is set to the playback mode, the side of the control can be used to review images as thumbnails, first showing 9 photos per screen, then a calendar view that presents the entire current month with the days on which photos were captured showing a small thumbnail of the first photo captured on that date. While when the side is pressed, it is possible to zoom into the image up to 8X.

The next button down is the playback button: . By itself, the playback button cannot be used to start the camera in playback mode. But if is held pressed when the power button is pressed, the camera will start in the playback mode, and can be switched to the capture mode by pressing the shutter release halfway, or by pressing the playback button.

The 4-way controller is below the playback button. Composed of four curved buttons and a centre OK button, the control is used to browse through the menus and make selections that are confirmed with the OK button. Each of the curved buttons also offers a function in the capture modes:

The up button controls the Drive Mode:

• Single: the W30 captures one image each time the shutter release is pressed.
• Self-timer: allows activating a delay of 2 or 10 seconds after the shutter release has been pressed.

• Continuous has two modes:
  • Continuous Shooting: shoots continuously saving each image immediately after capture.
  • HS Continuous Shooting: captures a burst of five frames at 3 frames per second until the buffer memory is full.
• Interval Shooting allows capturing a series of images over time. Images can captured with a selectable interval that covers from 10 seconds to 99 minutes, the number of shots to be captured can be set from 2 to the maximum number of shots possible with the memory card, and the a time delay can be set before the shooting starts from 0 to 24 hours.

The right button selects the Focus mode:

• Standard: lets the camera focus over a range of 40 cm (16 inches) to infinity.
• Macro: allows the camera to focus over a range of 1 cm (0.39 inch) to 60 cm (16 inches) locking the zoom at the wide angle end. A digital zoom is available in this mode.
• Infinity: locks focus at infinity.
• Pan Focus: the camera locks the focus depending on the aperture used so as to obtain the greatest depth of field.
• Manual Focus: allows setting the focus using the up and down arrows of the 4-way controller, while the camera magnifies the centre of the frame so it fills the screen, making it easier to focus the shot.

The down button selects one of the 25 shooting modes:

	Auto Picture mode lets the camera select the best shooting mode automatically, defaulting to the Program mode when it cannot determine the scene mode to use.
	Program mode lets the camera select both aperture and shutter speed, but leaves all other settings up to the user.
	Night Scene mode makes it possible to capture exposures that are up to 4 seconds long.
	Movie mode offers two frame sizes, either 640 x 480 pixels or 320 x 240 pixels, with frame rates of either 30 or 15 frames per second and at any one of three levels of compression. The length of the recording is only limited by the available memory space, up to 4 GB. The optical and digital zooms can be used if enabled in the menu. Exposure, focus and white balance are adjusted continuously as the recording progresses. Pressing the Green button (see further) allows capturing a still image while the camera continues recording. A Movie SR (electronic shake reduction) is also available.

	Portrait mode adjusts the white balance so as to provide a natural look. This mode uses Face Recognition.
	Underwater is designed to capture photos underwater, emphasizing blue tones.
	Underwater Movie is designed to adjust colours when the camera is used to capture movies underwater.
	Digital SR (Blur Reduction) allows the camera to use a higher shutter speed and prevent an image blurred by camera shake by increasing the sensitivity.
	Surf & Snow mode automatically applies exposure compensation, correcting for the influence of reflective and bright environments.
	Sport mode gives preference to a fast shutter speed so as to freeze movement.
	Pet mode allows selecting the colour of the pet's coat (dog or cat) from a second screen so that the camera takes it into account and adjusts the exposure accordingly. A choice of light, medium or dark for both dogs and cats is offered, but the selection of either dog or cat impacts only the icon shown on the monitor, not the image.
	Frame Composite allows adding a frame to the image, selecting it from seven that are built into the camera but which can be changed by uploading new frames using the camera software. The mode forces the image resolution to 3- megapixel.
	Synchro Sound Record automatically records ten seconds of sound before and after the shutter is released.
	Kids slightly increases colour saturation and increases sensitivity if required to maintain a reasonably fast shutter speed.
	Soft captures an image with a soft focus and soft blurred outlines.
	Self Portrait allows the camera to adjust focus and colour when it is pointed back at the user. This mode uses Face Recognition.
	Fireworks fixes the shutter speed at 4 seconds, requiring the use of a tripod.
	Food mode increases colour saturation slightly.
	Text is designed to capture printed material in black and white, or with reversed colours.
	Museum serves to take photos where flash photography is not permitted.
	Natural Skin Tone adjusts the colour and brightness to reproduce flattering skin tones. This mode uses Face Recognition.
	Report fixes the image resolution at 1280 x 960 so the image can be used easily as an illustration in a report.

Finally, the left button of the 4-way controller serves to select the Flash modes:

• Auto, Forced Off, Forced On, Auto with Redeye Reduction, Forced On with Redeye Reduction, or Soft, which reduces the power of the flash.

The OK button at the centre of the 4-way controller, not only confirms selections, it also serves to control the level of information displayed on the monitor.

With the camera set to capture mode, it cycles through 3 displays, and then turns off the monitor's backlight, useful when there is a need to conserve power as the screen remains partially visible when there is a strong light on it. And, with the camera turned off, pressing the OK button for a couple of seconds displays a clock, which turns off automatically after 10 seconds.

Pressing the OK button causes the display to go through the following modes:

• Normal: is the default display, which indicates the capture mode, the flash mode, the focus mode, drive mode if other than single, the memory in use (internal or SD card), the remaining number of photos that can be captured, the battery's charge, the AF brackets and the date and time.

• Histogram + Info: displays the same information as the Normal mode, but adds the image size, the image quality, the white balance, the metering mode, the ISO setting and a real-time histogram that shows the distribution of brightness in the frame while the image highlights underexposed areas by making them blink in blue and those that may be overexposed in red. Moreover, when the shutter release is pressed halfway and the camera establishes the exposure, the shutter speed and aperture are indicated on the lower left of the monitor.

• No Info Display: removes all information with the exception of the AF brackets.

In the playback mode, the button also cycles through 3 modes. The first superimposes a modest amount of information on the monitor:

• Normal shows the icon for the playback mode, the memory in use, the image's file number, the time and date on which it was captured.
• Histogram + Info: adds the shooting data and a histogram, much the same as the capture mode, but this time placing most of the information on the left side of the monitor.
• No Info simply leaves the image on screen.

Two other buttons are aligned below the 4-way controller. The one on the left is labelled and calls up the menu that corresponds to the camera mode — capture or playback (menu options are detailed in the Characteristics section of the review) — or serves to return to the previous screen when a menu option has been accessed.

The one on the right is called the green button, and by default, when pressed it switches the camera to the Green mode.

The Green mode is the most basic shooting mode of the W30. In this mode, the user has little control over the camera as it resets to basic settings, including an average compression, an auto sensitivity range of 64 to 400 ISO, etc., but it is doubtless the simplest mode to use.

The Green button can also be reprogrammed in the Setup menu (see the Interface and Software section of the review for a listing of all the options contained in the Setup menu) so that it acts as a direct access to a specific function. Any camera setting can be assigned to any one of four different registers for the button, each accessing a different function, which can then be associated quickly in the Setup menu to the button itself.

The waterproof/dust proof construction of the W30 means that all of its external controls are designed to prevent the ingress of water or dust into the camera itself. For the two doors on the camera — one that covers the battery and the memory card, the other the external connections — that means rubber gaskets. For the external controls, it means that the switches they activate are protected by waterproof seals, and in turn that they are a little bit stiffer than what is common on a camera. However, this is a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes from knowing that a bit of rain, or even a dip at the far end of the pool will not damage the camera.