Functionally very good at the price...Unfashionable...Tesco online offers the same beast at a whopping £489, so please shop around for the best price, although Internet Cameras Direct - http://www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk/Pentax-Optio-550-digital-camera-deals.htm?campaign=google&pentax_optio_550 - warns that the camera is discontinued...The Optio550 has...
The Optio550 is the first Pentax camera we've reviewed in the Labs...The design means the 550 is comfortable to hold and the controls are intuitively accessed via the top-mounted control dial and eight buttons at the rear...At 1.4in, the LCD is the smallest on show, although it proved very sharp, responsive and performed noticeably better in bright light than some others...
Editor Rating 7.4/10 Published on December 4, 2003
Very compact for its specs; comprehensive feature set; high-quality images; long battery life....Autofocus speed average at best; continuous-shooting mode only 1fps; no slow-sync flash setting; no RAW...It is so small, has 5 times zoom, 5 megapixels, manual modes galore, 3-d stereo shooting mode, panorama assist, voice recorder, 10 minute vid clips, etc, etc...Even with lots of zoom the pics print...
If you want to print indoor, low light shots bigger than 8x10, buy an SLR and good flash...If you've got one of these beasts, bring it in to your local camera shop for the fix! My one major complaint: -it is verrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyy slow to start up Geeze folks, sure there's some noise, but it's not that bad...I'm actually in some pictures now! Bottom line...
Summary from 36 user reviews Average Rating 8.5/10
Good zoom for a small compact camera...Good for taking pictures even of action...I very highly recommend this camera! Noisy at ISO values greater than 100...
noise noticeable at ISO 100 and above...Overall I am VERY impressed with this camera, it is light, portable, versatile, gives me very high quality pictures, and seems tough enough to stand up to a demanding life on off-shore seabird colonies...The major pros of the Optio550 are its overall image quality, 5x lens, battery life, feature set, and portability...
