Pentax Optio S55 Review

The Pentax Optio S55 is a stylish five megapixel digital camera. It has a three times optical zoom lens. With a metal body it has a better build quality than many point and shoot digital cameras. The Optio S55 has all the standard features you would expect to find on a digital camera in this price bracket, but remains easy to use.

It is likely to appeal to anyone who is looking for a straightforward digital camera with a good build quality at a reasonable price.

To be honest in terms of picture quality the Optio S55 is a bit of a mixed bag. Without doubt the outstanding shots I managed to take with it were the outdoor landscape type photos. These produced exceptionally deep colours and the camera was able to handle the usual challenge of contrasting light and dark areas of a photo well. If you are planning to use this camera mainly for outdoor work for taking typical holiday snaps and photos at social gatherings then you should have no problems with this type of shot.

Indoors in lowlight the story was somewhat different. As with many digital cameras the lowlight caused focusing difficulties for the Optio S55. This led to images that were not as sharp as I would like to see them. This is illustrated by both the indoor portrait and the picture of a set of bottles.

The result of the macro shot was average. I have seen many better than the one I produced and also many that are not as good. If one of your main reasons for looking to buy a camera is to take close up shots then I would advise you to look elsewhere.

Finishing my test shots on a high note the dedicated test for colour produced a very strong result. This is not surprising owing to the strength of the outdoor landscape pictures.

So at the end of my test shots I would say I felt slightly disappointed. It may have been too much to expect for the indoor shots to have matched the outdoor ones, but I would certainly have liked to have seen better indoor photos than I managed to achieve.

The Optio S55 managed to take a single shot in 0.42 seconds. That time is slower than average. It took 24.85 seconds to take five consecutive shots. This works out at a rate of one photo more or less every five seconds. This is a very slow indeed and does not bode well if you wish to reel off two or three pictures in a row.

You can compare this camera to other models by taking a look at the Shutter Lag Comparison Table.

The 3x optical zoom lens has a focal length that is the equivalent to 35.6mm to 107mm in 35mm format. The maximum aperture of the lens is f2.6. This is supported by a 2.6x digital zoom feature. For close up photography there is a super macro mode that lets you get in as close as 6cms.

The maximum range of the built in flash unit is 4.9m. This falls to 2m when the zoom lens is fully extended. The flash modes you can select from are Auto flash, flash on, flash off, red-eye reduction.

As well as being able to use the camera in fully automatic mode there are a number of preset scenes you can take advantage of. These help the camera to take the best possible picture in a variety of different photographic situations. All you need to do is select the most appropriate scene. The preset scenes are Portrait, Landscape, Night-Scene, Flower, Self-Portrait, Surf, Snow, Sunset, Museum, Text, Food, and Landscape Portrait.

For composing images, accessing the menu system and reviewing photos you have already taken there is a 2.5" LCD screen. This is made up of approximately 115,000 pixels.

You can shoot short movies. These are only limited in duration by the capacity of the memory card. The maximum resolution is 320x240 and movies can be recorded at a rate of thirty frames per second. One advanced feature is that you are able to zoom in and out while shooting a movie. Not many digital cameras have this functionality.

To add something different to a shot there are ten digital filters you can try out. These are: B&W, Sepia, Red, Green, Blue, B&W+Red, B&W+Green, B&W+Blue, 2 in 1 and Panorama Assist. In addition you can adjust the sharpness, saturation and contrast levels.

A histogram is available to help you take a balanced photo. For when you would like to appear in the photo yourself there is a self timer mechanism that can be set to a two or ten second delay. Continuous shooting is also available. Short voice memos can be added to still images after they have been taken.

To help get perfect colours there are a number of white balance settings you can use. The full list is Automatic, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent and Manual settings.

There are three types of metering available. These are Multi segment, centre-weighted and spot metering. Shutter speeds range from four seconds to 1/2000 seconds. Exposure compensation (+/- 2 EV in 1/3 EV steps) and manual focusing are available too.

Pentax supplies all the necessary cables and software to connect the Optio S55 to a computer, PictBridge compatible printer and a television set.

In terms of ease of use you should find very few problems. A control dial sits on top of the camera that lets you select the shooting mode (i.e. automatic mode, scene mode or movie mode). On the back of the camera are all the normal controls for flash, zoom etc. When you need to dip into the menu system you should be able to find what you are looking for without any fuss. All in all this is a well thought out camera.

You can pick up a Pentax Optio S55 for around £150. This compares to around £175 for a Sony DSC W5, £175 for a Nikon Coolpix 5900 and £182 for an Olympus MJU 500. As you can see the Optio S55 is a fair bit cheaper than other digital cameras with a similar specification and build quality. It is not easy to find other five megapixel cameras like the Optio S55 to compare it against.

This camera is a typical shiny, silver rectangle. It has a metal body and I like the style, build quality and the feel of the camera in the hand. On the front there is a useful small grip to help you hold the camera steady when taking a shot. The 2.5" LCD screen means there was no room to squeeze in a viewfinder.

The camera weighs in at 135g and has dimensions of 89 x 58.5 x 27.5mm.

Two AA batteries are used to run the Optio S55. If you are planning to use the camera on a regular basis then I would recommend picking up a set of rechargeable batteries and a charger to keep running costs down.

There is 11mb of storage built into the Optio S55, so it does not come with a memory card. I was only able to take six photos with the camera before the internal memory was full. Therefore I recommend buying a large memory card as well. The Optio S55 is compatible with SD cards. Click here to save money on SD cards.

Outdoor photos
Ability to zoom in when shooting movies
Style and design
Ease of use

Indoor photos
Shutter lag

There is a lot to like about the Pentax Option S55. It has a stylish design, takes excellent photos outdoors and is easy to use too. There are a couple of downsides that cannot be dismissed easily though. These are the problems it has focusing in lowlight and long shutter lag times. There are not many stylish five megapixel cameras to choose from and the Optio S55 is one of the cheapest models you will find in this category.

Pentax Optio S55 Front View

Pentax Optio S55 Back View

Pentax Optio S55 Top View

Sample Menus

Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site, please make sure you double check the feature set and specification at the point of purchase.

Pentax Optio S55