Review based on a production Pentax Optio S5i
Announced in August 2004, the Pentax Optio S5i is an upgrade of the popular S4i with an extra million pixels, some minor styling changes and a couple of new features. The S5i is almost unfeasibly small — thanks in part to the innovative sliding lens first seen at the start of 2003 in the Optio S (and since in several Pentax and Casio models) — yet is more feature-packed than most other ultra-compacts. In an ever-growing market, and with a handful of outstanding competing models (see recent reviews of the Canon PowerShot SD300 and Panasonic DMC-FX7 for example), does the Optio S5i have what it takes to become the pocket camera of choice? Let's find out. Here's a few of the S5i's headline features to get us started:
| Street price | • US: $360 • UK: £250 |
|---|---|
| Body Material | Metal |
| Sensor | • 1/2.5" CCD, 5.25 million total pixels • 5.0 million effective pixels |
| Image sizes | • 2560 x 1920 |
| Movie clips | • 320 x 240 (15 fps) |
| Lens | • 35.6 - 107 mm equiv. (3x zoom) |
| Focus | • TTL autofocus |
| Shooting mode | • Portrait |
| Sensitivity | • Auto • ISO 80 • ISO 100 • ISO 200 • ISO 400 |
| White Balance | • Auto • Cloudy, daylight, incandescent, shade, tungsten light, fluorescent light (neutral white and white), fluorescent light (daylight) and manual (custom) |
| Image parameters | • Sharpness (5 settings) • Saturation (5 settings) • Contrast (5 settings) |
| Continuous | 0.3 fps |
| Flash | • Built-in flash • Auto, on/off, auto + red-eye reduction, on with red eye reduction • Range (ISO 200): Wide 0.2m - 3.5 m (0.65 - 11.5 ft) / Tele 0.2m - 2.0m (0.65 - 6.6 ft) |
| Storage | • SD/MMC |
| Viewfinder | Optical |
| LCD monitor | • 1.8 " TFT LCD • 85,000 pixels |
| Connectivity | • USB 1.1 • A/V out • DC-IN |
| Power | • D-L18 Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery • Battery Charging Stand D-BC25 included |
| In the box* | • Optio S5i camera |
| Other features | • PictBridge |
| Weight (inc batt) | 120 g (4.2 oz) |
| Dimensions | 88 x 52 x 20.5 mm (3.4 x 2.0 x 0.8 in) |
* Supplied accessories may differ in each country or area
If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read the Digital
Photography Glossary before diving into this article (it may help
you understand some of the terms used).
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Conclusion / Recommendation / Ratings are based on the opinion of the reviewer, you should read the ENTIRE review before coming to your own conclusions. Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (typically VGA) image in a new window. To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or select it from the navigation bar at the top. DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C. |
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