Pentax Optio X90 Reviewed by Photography Blog

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/pentax_optio_x90_review/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+photographyblog+PhotographyBLOG' target='_blank'>http://www.photographyblog.com/revi...PhotographyBLOG</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"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."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1276103808.usr15670.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>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 simi<script type="text/javascript" src="http://onesite.thoughtsmedia.com/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js"></script>lar. 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.</p><p>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.</p>

[Reid Kistler]

Happen to be a fan of the "Advanced SuperZoom" category - or, at least, of an Idealized Vision of such a camera.

Still, agree that this market is pretty well saturated, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the players apart (although that comment could easily be extended to the overall digital camera market).

Of course, this tends to be characteristic of most mature product markets: the features that sell tend to be adopted by nearly all of the players, barring some barrier to doing so (perhaps a sufficiently strong patent - ??).

However, it also appears that the Zoom Length and Megapixel count have outgrown the sensor size / quality of at least most of the Superzoom cameras, AND there are a lot more alternatives now - in terms of the price / feature / performance / size matrix that a Superzoom should maximize - than just a few years ago...