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  • Physical Tour

  • Components

  • Design / Layout

  • Modes

  • Control Options

  • Image Parameters

  • Connectivity / Extras

  • Overall Impressions

  • Conclusion

  • Physical Tour
  • Components
  • Design / Layout
  • Modes
  • Control Options
  • Image Parameters
  • Connectivity / Extras
  • Overall Impressions
  • Conclusion

Physical Tour

**Back
**Dominated by the 2.5-inch LCD screen, the back of the A10 is where most of the controls are located. From the top to the bottom on the right are the zoom control, the play button, and the main control dial (with controls for, from top clockwise: shooting mode, focus mode, the camera mode, and the flash mode). The control dial is also used to navigate the menu, which is accessed with the menu button. The green button on the bottom right is a programmable button that can be used for several purposes, such as switching between still and movie mode and switching the shake reduction on and off.

**Left Side
**The only thing on the left side of the camera is the speaker for playing back audio on movies.

**Right Side
**On the right side of the camera are the combined USB and video out port (different cables are used for each purpose), the strap loop, and the power socket. Both are below plastic covers that feel a little flimsy: they could be easily snapped off by rough treatment. Towards the front of the right side, more on the front edge, is a wrist strap lug that protrudes very slightly out from the camera. Its form is smooth, though, so it shouldn’t snag on anything.

**Top
**On the top of the camera is an indentation for the index finger of the left hand, the control for the shake reduction, the on/off button, and the shutter release. The shutter button’s actuation is a little too loose: there is very little difference in pressure between halfway down and fully down: I found myself sometimes taking pictures by accident.

**Bottom **

On the bottom of the camera are the battery and SD card slot, plus a tripod mount. The mount is centrally located, which is good news. You won’t get any odd effects when you pan around.

Components

**Viewfinder
**

The A10 doesn’t have a viewfinder, though this is becoming increasingly common on compacts and point-and-shoots. Framing is done through the 2.5-inch LCD screen.

**LCD Screen
**The screen certainly makes up for the absence of a viewfinder. At 2.5 inches, it’s not the biggest we’ve seen, but it’s pretty bright and with 232,000 pixels, it’s easy to see details in the photos. The angle of view is reasonable; two or three people at once could look at the photos on the screen and see them just fine. We weren’t able to test it outdoors, but TFT screens usually perform well under sunlight.

**Flash **

The Optio A10’s small flash is located above and to the left of the lens. Pentax quotes the flash range at between 16 feet (at its widest setting) and 8.2 feet (zoomed all the way out), but these measurements seem a little optimistic. We found that faces more than six feet away were a little dark when we used the flash. But that’s actually acceptable and on par with most similarly priced cameras. The coverage was adequate at the wide angle setting, although there were darker spots in the corners.

**Zoom Lens
**The lens is a 3x, 7.9 to 23.7mm optical zoom lens built by SMC Pentax with a maximum aperture of f/2.8. That’s equivalent to a 37.5 to 112.5mm on a 35mm film camera, and a reasonable range for a camera of this class. Zooming across the range is smooth, with no noticeable stutters or stops. There’s also a 4x digital zoom available, but not surprisingly the image quality suffers, especially at the higher digital magnifications.

Design / Layout

**Model Design / Appearance
**The shiny aluminum case of the A10 feels robust and well constructed. The corners are rounded and none of the buttons stick out too far, so you aren’t likely to damage anything if you drop it from a few feet. Just don’t drop it off a cliff. It should stand up to the slings and arrows of modern photography.

**Size / Portability
**At 0.9 inches thick, the case is pretty thin, and will slide easily into a pocket or bag. As mentioned earlier, the buttons don’t protrude far, so nothing is likely to get snagged when you try and pull it out quickly. The case is 3.5 inches wide by 2.1 inches tall, so it’s a little bigger than some of the credit-card sized cameras we’ve seen (like the Casio EX-S600), but it is still very portable. Users can also attach a strap to the single wrist strap lug, if they wish.

**Handling Ability
**The A10 fits comfortably in the hand, and shooting either with one hand or two feels fine. Two-handed shooting is easier; I found the camera can slip a little bit when trying to access the controls (which are all located on the back) when using just one hand. There’s no textured grip, but the metal surface was not especially slippery, so most users should have no problems holding onto the camera.

**Control Button / Dial Positioning / Size
**The shutter and zoom controls fall naturally under the index finger and thumb. The control buttons can be accessed with the thumb, although the camera can slip sometimes if you’re just using one hand (as noted above). But the menu buttons and programmable green button require the use of the other hand to brace the camera. I had no problem with the size of the buttons themselves – they were appropriately proportioned to the size of the camera body.

The shutter button felt a little light, though: I found myself inadvertently taking a picture several times when I was testing it because I had accidentally pressed it all the way down.

**Menu
**Displayed over a preview of the images, the tabbed menus are easy to read and browse. The mode menu (accessed through the mode button) shows both text and icons for the 15 modes it offers. The menu system is logically laid out and well designed, so navigation is smooth.  

 

**Ease of Use **

The A10 is generally very easy to use: the controls work in a logical way, and things are where you expect them to be. There’s no built-in help function, but most users won’t need one: the controls are straightforward and the menus are self-explanatory.

Modes

**Auto Mode **

The auto picture mode, as the name suggests, puts all of the decision making for controls into the camera’s hands. It picks the ISO settings, the white balance settings, and everything else. We found that, in the limited testing that we were able to do for this First Impressions Review, the camera made good decisions when shooting indoors under florescent light, but we didn’t have an opportunity to test it under daylight or other lighting conditions.

**Movie Mode
**Movies can be recorded at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 pixels, both at 30 frames per second. The movies are saved as DivX files, and the only limit to the length of the movie is the size of the memory card. But you can’t do that much when taking a movie: the zoom and focus controls are locked while recording. The shake reduction feature is also disabled, and the mono sound that’s recorded with the movie is rather noisy. All of this means that it’s only usable for short videos. It’s certainly no hybrid model, and it’s not going to replace your camcorder. You can, however, save individual frames from a movie within the camera.

**Drive / Burst Mode
**The A10 has a continuous shooting mode that took around 2 frames a second (Pentax was unable to supply the official spec). With a fast SD card (such as the SanDisk Extreme 256MB card I used for testing) the camera was able to keep shooting for at least 10 seconds, enough for even the most indecisive photographer. This is not exceptional performance, but certainly acceptable for snapshooters.

**Playback Mode **

The playback modes are adequate, but basic. You can display thumbnails of up to 9 images at once and zoom in up to 8x (useful for checking focus on an image). You can’t, however, filter the images by date or time, but you can create a basic slide show for playback on the screen or through the composite video output.

The A10 also offers some in-camera editing options, such as resize, trim, and red-eye correction. Users can also choose to protect images from accidental deletion and add voice memos.

**Custom Image Presets **

The A10 has 11 scene modes which cover the usual gamut of shooting situations: night, landscape, flower, portrait, surf & snow, candle light, text, food, sport, and pet. These alter settings such as exposure and ISO for the situation, but there’s no way to tweak the settings yourself.

What the A10 doesn’t have is a custom scene mode, a nice surprise included with a few other compacts on the market. Although the camera will preserve any changes you’ve made to the settings when you turn the power off, there is no way to create groups of settings that you can quickly switch between. This is a noticeable omission for a camera that’s supposedly a higher-end point-and-shoot.

Control Options

**Manual Control Options **

There’s no direct way to control shutter speed and aperture: instead, you have to choose a scene mode that is closest to the mode you want to use or influence the settings using the EV compensation function. There is, however, a manual focus mode and control over ISO and white balance settings, as well as sharpness, contrast, and saturation controls.

**Focus **
*Auto Focus
*The contrast detection based autofocus system on the A10 is a little sluggish. We found that in moderate to low light, it sometimes took a couple of seconds to focus in on even well lit subjects. The autofocus also got slower at the higher zoom settings. For really low light shooting, there’s an autofocus assist light to the right of the lens, but seeing as how the AF is slow to begin with, we can’t say how much of a help it will be.

*Manual Focus
*There is manual focus on the A10, but it is clumsy at best. You focus using the up and down buttons on the four-way controller, and it can be a tiresome business, taking around 10 seconds to go from the closest focus point to infinity. While it might be useful occasionally, autofocus is much more useful for general use.

**Metering **

Three metering modes (multi-segment, which evaluates the entire image; center weighted, which evaluates the center; and spot, which evaluates a very small area) provide enough choice for most lighting situations. In our limited testing for this preview, we found that most scenes seemed to be metered and exposed accurately.

**Exposure
**Exposure settings on the Optio A10 are automatic, but you do get the option of adding exposure compensation of up to 2 stops either way in 1/3-stop increments. This range is a sine qua non for compacts.

**White Balance
**The selection of white balance settings is reasonable, with settings for auto, daylight, shade, tungsten, florescent, and manual. The auto setting seemed to work as expected in our limited tests under florescent lights, but we were not able to test it in daylight or other light sources (this will come in our full review to follow). Changing the white balance setting is easily done: it’s right on the main menu, so it’s never more than a couple of button presses away.

**ISO **

ISO settings from 64 to 400 are available, along with an automatic setting. Noise was a problem with the higher settings, however: we saw above average noise levels in dark colors and shadows.

**Shutter Speed
**The A10 has shutter speed settings of 1/2000 of a second to 4 seconds. There is, however, no way to set the shutter speed manually. It is done automatically in all modes, which is a bit of a surprise; higher-end compacts frequently have a shutter priority or a manual mode.

**Aperture
**The aperture range of the A10 is from f/2.8 to f/5.4. This information is not displayed on the screen, though, and there is no way to set it manually, neither through a manual nor aperture priority mode.

Image Parameters

**Picture Quality / Size Options
**Seven different image size settings give users plenty of choice: there are settings for 8, 5, 4, 3, 2, 0.7, and 0.3 megapixel images in JPEG format. There are three settings for image quality: three star, two star, and one star, much like the Kodak system on its C-series point-and-shoots (though Kodak uses a bit of clever marketing and rates their images at five, four, and three stars). There’s no option for saving RAW images.

**Picture Effects Mode **

A number of digital filters can be applied to images, ranging from color effects (such as black and white, black & white+green) to the usual suspects of sepia and soft. These work, but software tends to do a better job. It’s usually more effective to take the image straight and process it later on a PC.

Connectivity / Extras

**Connectivity **
*

Software
*Pentax bundles the ACDSee Photo Manager package with the A10, which is a very competent photo manger and basic editing package. Pentax cameras tend to ship with good software.

*Jacks, Ports, Plugs
*On the right side of the camera is a combination USB port and video out port. With the included cable, this can connect the camera to a TV for viewing pictures. NTSC and PAL support is included. A USB cable is included as well.

*Direct Print Options
*Support is included for PictBridge printing, which allows the camera to print directly to a compatible printer. This requires changing the USB setting in the main menu and flagging which images are to be printed. It’s a pain if you want to print a lot of images, but it is a quick way to quickly print images without having to fire up the PC, copy the image, etc.

*Battery *
*

*Power is supplied by a D-LI8 rechargeable lithium-ion battery. This is the same battery that’s used in all recent Pentax point-and-shoot cameras, so you can keep the batteries if you are upgrading from an older camera. The small battery holds about 710 mAh of charge, and Pentax quotes a figure of 150 shots. We weren’t able to test this fully ourselves, but it does seem to be on the short side.

*Memory
*24MB of memory is built into the camera: enough for a rather minimal 7 images at the highest quality and image size settings. Extra storage is added through the SD card slot on the bottom of the camera.

**Other Features
***Green button -* The green button on the bottom right of the camera’s back is programmable: you can set it to switch between controlling the shake reduction setting, reset the camera to default settings, switch between still and movie mode, or access the function settings.

Shake reduction – Many cameras have electronic image stabilization, where the camera tries to adapt for camera movement within the sensor. Others have optical stabilization, where an element in the lens moves to adjust for small movements. The A10 brings Pentax into the stabilization game, moving the entire sensor when it detects small movements. This seemed to do a very effective job.

Overall Impressions

**Initial Performance Observations
**Our testing at the CES show was limited to taking indoor shots, but we found them to be generally well-exposed and exhibiting good color. Noise may be an issue, though. At the higher ISO settings (the maximum is 400) we saw significant amounts of noise in shadows and dark colors.

Otherwise the camera was responsive. Startup time was acceptable, at around 1.5 seconds, which is mostly the time it takes for the lens to telescope out. The shutter lag was also bearable, at under half a second.

The shake reduction system performed well, preventing much of the blurring you would see if you were shooting after having too much coffee. But it can’t compensate for big movements, so it’s not an excuse to not bother holding the camera steady. Pentax also says that using the shake reduction system shortens the battery life, as it has to drive the motors that move the sensor.

**Value **

The A10 offers high resolution, high quality images, and is easy to use. But it falls somewhere between the really simple point-and-shoot cameras and the advanced cameras, and it’s missing many features of the latter. Perhaps we could invent a new category for it: Sort-of-Advanced-Point-and-Shoot-Cameras. But even so, some might quibble and find the price of $350 a little bit steep for what you get. Then again, if the street price drops below $325 or $300, it might be the most economic 8 megapixel alternative available.

**Who It’s For **
Point-and-Shooters - The A10 does an effective job of taking images quickly, and they’re 8MP images to boot. This is a good point-and-shoot camera.

*Budget Consumers - *There are cheaper cameras out there, but the A10 is well priced for an 8 megapixel model.

Gadget Freaks - It’s not as thin and small as cameras like the Exilim EX-S600, but the small profile and high resolution might appeal to a few gadget lovers.

Manual Control Freaks - The A10 is best avoided by these users – the lack of access to settings like shutter speed and aperture would make them disappointed.

Pros / Serious Hobbyists – Serious users may want this as their casual day-trip-with-the-kids camera rather than their digital SLR; it has high resolution, is a lot easier to use covertly, and is a heck of a lot more portable. But it’s not going usurp your D200 anytime soon.

Conclusion

**Conclusion
**The A10 is a small, well-built compact camera, designed to be Pentax's new flagship of their Optio line with the addition of a shake reductrion system. But there are some serious omissions: the lack of access to commonly-used manual controls is a big problem for a camera supposedly designed for more advanced users. There’s no way to manually set shutter or aperture and the manual focus is a pain. The battery life is also on the low side.

But it does an effective job as a point-and shoot camera: the image quality is strong (although we should point out that our testing was limited: further testing in our full review may prompt other conclusions), but thus far, it appears to be a good pick for a user who wants high resolution images in a convenient package. Check back for the full review.

Meet the tester

Richard Baguley

Richard Baguley

Contributor

@@rbaguley

Richard Baguley is a veteran writer who has written about technology ranging from Alphabet to Zip file utilities. He has contributed to pretty much every major tech publication, including Amiga Format Magazine, PC World, Wired, CNET, Toms Guide, Forbes, and many others. He lives in the Boston metro area with his wife, dog, and an indeterminate number of cats.

See all of Richard Baguley's reviews

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