Digital Home Thoughts: Pentax Optio X90 Reviewed by Photography Blog

"The Pentax Optio X90 is a super-zoom digital camera that looks and feels like a DSLR. Featuring a 26x, 26-676mm lens with a sensor-shift Shake Reduction system, the X90 should cover most photographic bases. Also on offer are a 12 megapixel sensor, 720p HD movies with an HDMI port, electronic viewfinder and a 2.7 inch LCD screen, Aperture-Priority, Shutter-Priority and Manual shooting modes, and a 1cm macro mode."

Another day, another superzoom. Photography Blog takes a look at Pentax's offering and are quite impressed by it. Me? I'll say I'm getting bored of the me-too cameras coming out in this category. Every big photography brand has one, and a few (including the Pentax) are quite similar. Given the zoom progression (20x, 24x, 26x etc) happening in roughly the same time from different manufacturers, I'm inclined to believe that there's one or two ODMs out there making the same camera but customised for each different brand name. The digital camera market is a very competitive nowadays so many of the big brands are willing to sub-contract out the mass-market cameras to cut costs, then do a minimum of marketing and hope enough sales are made based on brand-name recognition. I suspect this brings in a good sum of cash to keep other operations afloat.

On the camera proper: It's got a big zoom, it's not too expensive, um, that's not really more to it. Need long focal lengths on the cheap, get one of these. I personally would take a look at the Fujifilm HS10 because of the potentially better sensor involved, as well as an even bigger zoom ratio, but I won't get my hopes up there as well. Like I said, this area of the market feels a bit tired.