Pentax Optio S40 4MP with a detailed digital imaging system and some advanced features, the Optio S40 is well-suited to be the family’s digital camera. It’s encased in a compact aluminum body designed to stand up to the knocks and dings of travel, and its features make it accessible to photographers of all skill levels.
Featuring a 4-megapixel CCD sensor, the Optio S40 delivers photo-quality prints at sizes up to 11 by 15 inches. The camera has an smc Pentax 3x optical zoom lens, which is equivalent to 35-105mm lens for the 35mm film format. Combined with 2.6x digital zoom, the S40 can magnify images up to 7.8x.
The Optio S40 can capture short video clips with sound in movie mode. The maximum length of the movies this camera can capture is governed by resolution settings, framerate, and memory card size, but generally these movies are a few minutes in length. While they aren’t camcorder quality, these types of video clips are fun and convenient, and they’re perfect as e-mail attachments. You can even watch and listen to them on the camera’s built-in color LCD screen and speaker. The camera lets you record audio notes, too, which is ideal for those situations when you want to preserve the names of people or places you’re photographing.
Helpful consumer’s review
I’ve been using the Pentax S40 for the past three weeks, and am pleased with my purchase. I too selected this model because of the AA battery capability and have found the battery life to be very acceptable. I took over 100 flash pictures yesterday on a fully charged set of NiMH batteries. Spare NiMH batteries and a charger are quite cheap and most folks would carry a second set anyway.
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 8×10. 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.
