Outside magazine names pentax optio w90 gear of year winner

[i speak in math]

PENTAX Imaging Company announced that the PENTAX Optio W90 digital camera is an OUTSIDE MAGAZINE Gear of the Year Award winner. The Gear of the Year Award is announced in the Spring/Summer 2010 Outside Buyer’s Guide hitting newsstands today and remains available through September of this year.

"This is one cool camera,” said Buyer's Guide editor Sam Moulton. “With rugged specs and a design that makes it look like it belongs on a mountain trail, it offers everything an outdoor adventure enthusiast could want in a point and shoot camera,” added Sam Moulton.

"And when the shooting begins, the W90 brings some serious photographic punch," added Moulton.

The eleventh generation PENTAX Optio waterproof digital camera is built for rugged adventure in every way. With enhanced waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, and coldproof performance, the camera also features an inventive Digital Microscope mode with LED lighting to capture small but intriguing subjects. Designed with the distinct look of mountaineering equipment, the Optio W90 kit includes a woven web fabric strap complete with a carabiner to attach the camera to a backpack and other outdoor gear.

Adventure photography doesn’t get any better than this. The rugged Optio W90 offers photographic performance, innovative features and style that surpass other outdoor compact digital cameras now available on the market.
• Waterproof to 20 feet for reliable underwater photography
• Shockproof to 4 feet withstanding the rigors of extreme use
• Coldproof to sub-freezing temperatures for use in wintery, snowy activities
• 12.1 megapixel sensor and wide angle 5X optical zoom (28-140mm equivalent)
• Digital Microscope mode with LED lens lighting perfectly captures the smallest and closest macro subjects as near as 1cm from the camera
• Large 2.7 inch LCD with 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio that is easy to view in strong light or underwater
• Capture movies in widescreen 720p HD video at 30 frames per second
• An HDMI port plays back beautiful high resolution images and video on HDTVs
• Advanced Pixel Track Shake Reduction captures blur-free images in any lighting
• Fast Face Detection, Smile Capture, Blink Detection with processing modes specifically designed for portraiture, and new Pet Recognition captures up to 3 pre-programmed pet faces in memory
• Infrared remote control compatibility with new waterproof Remote Control WP, as well as other PENTAX infrared remotes
• Autofocus assist lamp helps to quickly and accurately focus, even in challenging lighting
• Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card connectivity for built-in Wi-Fi capability to transfer photos and videos from the camera to a computer or an online sharing site such as Picasaweb, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube (Eye-Fi cards sold separately.)
Priced at $329.95 USD, the camera is shipping now. A waterproof infrared remote control (sold separately) for use with the PENTAX Optio W90 and other infrared compatible Optio models is available for $29.95 USD. More information and where to buy is available here: www.pentaximaging.com. Product images are here: Press Image Vault

[mseigafuse]

Anyone have one of these? I've been thinking of buying one and was curious if anyone here has any feedback. Amazon reviews are generally good, but I wouldn't mind more feedback...

TIA,
Mike

[i speak in math]

If I were in the market for a P&S, it would be this one. Waterproof, shockproof, great macro ability...down to $240 on Amazon. If I lived near some water or mountains, I would have one for shooting underwater and bringing with on climbs.

Check out Ned Bunnell's blog post about the camera here and about microscope mode here

[mseigafuse]

Originally Posted by i speak in math

If I were in the market for a P&S, it would be this one. Waterproof, shockproof, great macro ability...down to $240 on Amazon. If I lived near some water or mountains, I would have one for shooting underwater and bringing with on climbs.

Check out Ned Bunnell's blog post about the camera here and about microscope mode here

Thanks for the links, I was looking for some of samples of microscope/macro mode and now that I've seen them -- wow! I saw the price on Amazon and that is what made me think about getting it now.

Hope I can swing this soon...

[mseigafuse]

When I saw the price drop on Amazon I just couldn't resist and went ahead and bought it

I have only had time for a couple of test shots so far, but I will definitely be playing with this when work stops getting in the way

It has been too rainy for the pool, so the first underwater test shot was in the kitchen where I filled the sink, put the camera underwater on the timer and then threw blueberries at it



I also took it along on the dog walk this morning and tested out the macro mode on some mushrooms I saw



Hopefully I will have some more interesting shots to post too. Far too early to give a verdict for sure, but so far I am liking it.

[i speak in math]

Very nice. Those look suprisingly sharper than I would expect from a P&S. I wish I could afford one right now.

[RubyT]

I love it for 1 cm macro and for anything with water. Great fun, and very lightweight. I keep it in my purse. Not as thrilled with the way it renders skin--so many MP in a small sensor, after all. It has a native ISO of 160, and I think having a native ISO of 80 would be better, but I am very happy with it as a carry-along camera, and I love the macro. It has the three LEDs that function as a sort of ring flash, and that is a wonderful feature for extreme close-ups.

[mseigafuse]

A new day and a few more shots... I'm sure now - I love this camera! Certainly not a replacement for my DSLR, but a heck of a nice rugged P&S to carry on me even underwater





These are both straight out of the camera, no tweaks, edits or adjustments at all - just an import and export using Lightroom