Pentax Optio W80Â Digital Camera – Azure Blue 2.5 inch Screen
Posted by Notcot on Jun 1, 2010 in Photography |
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I spent a long time reading reviews before purchasing this camera. I knew what to expect and was not disappointed with the result. The most important thing to understand is the camera’s limitations. There may be issues with the sensor or software and also, to protect it, the W80 has a piece of glass in front of the lens and this may well affect the quality in certain conditions. The solution, for me, was to take my old Pentax on holiday as well and leave it at the bottom of my day bag for occasions when I thought the W80 might struggle. Thanks to the background reading I knew when to swap cameras.
* So where do you use the W80? In short: outside and in good light.
I’ve taken mine caving, kayaking (and therefore swimming), snorkelling, tubing, and even zorbing. It has survived being dropped, immersed, and bumped. It is compact, lightweight and produces clear images in places where you could not take other cameras.
* Where should you not use the W80? In short: indoors (or in poor light).
It produces noisy images in low light and the ISO settings don’t seem to mitigate this. Conversely it also has problems with direct bright light, e.g. the sun can – but *not* always – cause lens flares or wash out the image (possibly due to the glass covering). It *sometimes* struggles with contrast, depth of field and the focal point can be too precise, picking out a single tree on a hillside at the expense of the rest of the hill and the sky behind it.
If this were a magazine review the issues I’ve listed above would lead to a poor score. However, what those reviews won’t tell you is that you can’t see the noise unless you zoom in excessively close on a computer screen. A magazine reviewer wouldn’t point out that slight focal issues with landscapes images aren’t even slightly noticeable on a 6×4 photo in an album. A technical review also won’t compare how effective the camera is in its own environments (e.g. underwater or rolling down a hillside in a big plastic ball).
Other points:
* Battery life is generally good unless you start using the flash, in which case it goes down quite rapidly.
* The camera can take HD movies. You will need a compatible memory card to make best use of this feature, bearing in mind it will only record 11 minutes in one go (regardless of how much space you have left on the card). To answer a question on another review – it does record sound, even underwater.
* It has some good features for cropping images, splitting movies, removing redeye and various other tweaks which are useful for those on the move. The menu controls are easy to use even one-handed and underwater where its shake reduction feature is essential for getting a good shot.
* It is waterproof, but watch out for condensation on the glass when you come out of the water (i.e. wipe it off if you want to take a photo at that point) and always rinse it in clean water if you’ve been in the sea. If you’re particularly concerned that water might leak through the seals then use insulating tape to cover them up.
If you’re a perfectionist then by all means look elsewhere, but if you understand what this camera is good for and use it accordingly then you won’t be disappointed.
Rating: 4 / 5
Let me start by saying that if you only look at the subject of a picture and not its quality this may be the perfect camera for you. Small, sturdy, waterproof and very easy to use it’s a great little beach-holiday camera. The ability to recognize faces and adjust the focus / exposure even when the face(s) are not in the centre of the picture, together with its shake reduction facilities are genuinely useful for kids and more experienced users alike. However for anyone discerning about picture quality I suggest you look elsewhere. Personally, I don’t expect SLR quality from this sort of camera but my wife’s compact camera (a 5 year old Sony W7 with 7m pixels) puts it to shame in EVERY respect of picture quality. The Pentax’s colours are dull and unconvincing, skin tones un-natural and low-light performance is dire. There’s lots of noise, even at 100 ASA and I found myself checking I wasn’t shooting at 2m pixels, so poor was the definition. I’ll be letting the kids play with this camera, and they’ll love it (underwater videos are great fun and its really simple to use), but out of the water I’ll be using something else every time. BTW There’s no case with this camera, which I’d deem an essential ‘accessory’ considering its semi-exposed lens, and although Pentax boasts it can take HD video, this is limited to around 15 seconds before it stops and saves to disk which for me renders it a pointless feature.
Rating: 2 / 5
Just used for the first time this weekend on a trip down Gaping Ghyll and into stream passage.
Camera performed brilliantly, good images, even managed to shoot some video in what was very poor light.
Came out covered in mud, quick rinse and dry and all was dandy.
Ideal for use as an outdoor activity camera.
Rating: 5 / 5
I bought this camera in duty-free outbound to the Maldives, and was willing to risk wasting £120 given the cost of going there in the first place. All in all it was a risk worth taking.
I own DSLRs and use those for proper photos, but there’s no way I was going to be spending the thousands required for DSLR cases and underwater lighting when all I wanted was some half-decent photo and video while snorkelling… and in that regard the Pentax came up trumps.
Would I recommend it as a primary camera? Absolutely not!
Its feature set is quite impressive for the money: it does the usual set of photo modes, face detection, smile detection, basic post-shot editing, 720p video, and yes it’s not half bad underwater. The zoom range is pretty good too. However, its noise in even medium lighting – let alone bad lighting – is awful. The underwater footage we got was exactly as we wanted, and dry video was great too: in terms of lighting though we were in shallow equatorial water; I’m not sure how well it would do without such strong sunlight.
Photos are noticeably sub-par compared to an similarly specified 12M Casio Exilim in all conditions.
Battery life is reasonable. We were initially frustrated at being given battery warnings every time we went out snorkelling, but realised that after shooting non-stop photo and video for 2+ hours, it’s actually not bad.
Would I recommend it as a niche/backup camera? Sure.
It’s cheap, cheerful, and solidly built; and it does a fair job of what it claims to do. The price is reasonable for what you get in return.
Rating: 4 / 5
Bought this as an update to the W10 i bought four years ago before travelling to Australia and New Zealand. Took pictures on the Great Barrier reef and used again underwater in the Caribbean this last February. Still water proof and working well, if just a bit “used”. This update can been used deeper and has more mega-pixels. But I will still keep the faithful W10. I haven’t used this one underwater yet, but hope to put this to test this summer
Rating: 4 / 5