anyone have experience with the Pentax

[Riosacandaga]

Optio Wpi camera ? I'm looking for a weather resistant camera that takes decent pictures and is small. I'd almost exclusively use it in the auto mode.
thanks, mike

[redhawk]

Optio Wpi camera ? I'm looking for a weather resistant camera that takes decent pictures and is small. I'd almost exclusively use it in the auto mode.
thanks, mike

Don't know how waterproof it is, They classify it as "JIS Class 8 waterproof" along with "JIS Class 15 Dustproof". I have no idea what those ratings mean, who sets them. etc.

It also has a "kid mode" to "auto track the little ones on the go"!

You can get a $30.00 rebate form from Pentax on the WPI good until June 30 Here!

Incidently. The Olympus Stylus 720 SW is immersible to 10 feet and can survive a five foot drop. It's 7.1 megapixel and less then .08 thick, it weighs 5.3 oz without batteries. features an extreme low light mode for campfire scenes. it would seem it was developed for campers and Death Wish Kayakers. Might bear looking into. This is the camera I would get if i had the money.

It also has image stabization which shoots great pictures when your bouncing off a rock under water, upside down in a kayak.

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1225

[Kevin]

Olympus is a great camera company with a long line of fans. So is pentax, and the pentax often cost less for the same features.

I'm currently using an Optio SV 5MP / 5x analog zoom. It's a year old, been on lots of hikes, gotten quite damp a few times (I'm still praying that there's no corrosion in the long term ). Takes excellent photos.

When I used to do 35mm in college I owned a Pentax or two and they were considered the standard for manual 35mm cameras.

[Riosacandaga]

I have an Olympus c5050 that was given to me as a gift a few years ago. It's a nice camera but crapped out a couple months ago. It started with the auto focus and optical zoom not working through the viewfinder (it still functioned with the screen view finder). It' has progressed now to where the battery life is a few minutes, even with a fresh set of batteries. I have e-mailed and tried calling Olympus to no evail and what I've heard is that it's "not worth repairing, it's more cost effective to replace and upgrade." That being the case I'm not very confident in the long term reliability of Olympus. The Pentax is not cheap either.. looking at around $350..
Thanks for the info..

[redhawk]

I have an Olympus c5050 that was given to me as a gift a few years ago. It's a nice camera but crapped out a couple months ago. It started with the auto focus and optical zoom not working through the viewfinder (it still functioned with the screen view finder). It' has progressed now to where the battery life is a few minutes, even with a fresh set of batteries. I have e-mailed and tried calling Olympus to no evail and what I've heard is that it's "not worth repairing, it's more cost effective to replace and upgrade." That being the case I'm not very confident in the long term reliability of Olympus. The Pentax is not cheap either.. looking at around $350..
Thanks for the info..

None of then are really customer friendly any more. I got the same song and dance fron Sony and another friend of mine was told prety much the same thing by Pentax.

[pico23]

I have an Olympus c5050 that was given to me as a gift a few years ago. It's a nice camera but crapped out a couple months ago. It started with the auto focus and optical zoom not working through the viewfinder (it still functioned with the screen view finder). It' has progressed now to where the battery life is a few minutes, even with a fresh set of batteries. I have e-mailed and tried calling Olympus to no evail and what I've heard is that it's "not worth repairing, it's more cost effective to replace and upgrade." That being the case I'm not very confident in the long term reliability of Olympus. The Pentax is not cheap either.. looking at around $350..
Thanks for the info..

Sadly, the minimum camera repair cost is around $100 so if it is shot chances are you really can save money buying a new one.

Keep in mind these cameras are disposable. I got my Kodak 7440 because it had a super nice lens and full manual (minus manual focus and custom white balance) plus a nice manual interface that is easy to control via thumb jog wheel. It has spot metering as well. With a rebate, a store credit and a free 256 card the whole thing cost $125 which is in the disposable range provided I get 1 year out of it. Been using it quite a bit on lighter hikes where i don't want to take the full 35mm outfit. With a wide angle adapter it's awesome. Gets wet, dropped, frozen, even dropped 100ft and into stream (in the lowepro case which floated in the stream). Works great and I'm almost at the 1 year point so I can't complain. Also, kodaks aren't known for durability so I definitely can't complain.

Only issue with the kodaks are the JPEG compression is a bit ambitious so don't expect to blow up anything too big. Even with upscaling the 11x14 i just got back from MPIX is at best passable, worse then a 200iso print film. The 8x10 I cropped and upsized is about the same. But uncropped 5x7's and 6x8's and 8x10's look great.

But when you consider that i take this camera places I wouldn't bother with my SLR I am happy.

Here is a pano I recently took with the camera and a second photo with the 20mm wide angle adapter. WIth the wide angle I was about 1 foot from my dogs face with the DOF the background is nice and sharp. Having a custom mode and with full manual makes the panos easy. I spot meter the initial shot and then just leave the settings.

[Kevin]

Pico, great suggestion. I've owned 2 Kodak digicams (the last one was a 6xxx series, very much like your current model) and both were good performers. I've also owned a Fuji, and now my Pentax. Of the three the Kodak took the more "life-like" photos. The Pentax has better zoom and a richer feature set (it's also newer by 2 years and twice the price). For size the Fuji Coolpix and Pentax are both relatively small, but for what it does the Pentax is much lighter per-feature.

For $450 the pentax has served me well and I feel I can get another year or two out of it. It's seen a little abuse but nothing out of the ordinary, so I can't comment on durability. However, for cheap the Kodak is the better "deal" if you don't mind slightly larger/heavier. For outdoors use, I like the idea of "whoops" only costing me $125 to replace than $200 to fix.

[pico23]

For outdoors use, I like the idea of "whoops" only costing me $125 to replace than $200 to fix.

Hi Kevin,

The 7440 and 7430 (now replaced model # wise but still in production) were actually the richest featured Kodaks I've seen without a rediculous zoom. Really on par with even Canon Aseries which I felt was the best.

FWIW, I worked with this stuff for a while so I really got a chance to both use and memorize all the features. I'd always praised the Canon A series and got one for my dad as well as had several friends buy them, then he was suprised when I went with Kodak since I'd bashed Kodak d-cams for years. Right now kodak has quite a few upper end d-cams including the P850 which is almost a professional quality EVF that has images stabilizer and a great lens. Plus a hot sync flash and tons of high end features. Too bad they bailed out of the DSLR market cause that full frame SLR they made was cutting edge at the time.

WIth Kodak you just have to look at the feature set. Some are made for novices with no intent on using the more advanced features and some are packed with Advanced features.

Also for what it's worth I have nothing against Pentax, actually all 4 of my film bodies are pentax and my DSLR (on the way) is also Pentax. And I've recommended quite a few pentax digital point and shoots. I really like the little fully waterproof models from an outdoors standpoint but I don't know the feature sets on them.

I just wish kodak would have put out a firmware update that reduced JPG compression since the camera is actually capable of even better image quality.

But in the end dropping a $150 camera off a cliff or into a creek beats dropping a $300 one. If I'm shooting seriously I drop a roll of Provia 100F into my film and do a high res scan which blows away any reasonably priced digital camera.

[Troutnut]

I have the Pentax Optio WPi. It's completely waterproof, unless you're deep-sea diving. It takes pictures underwater.

It's a very handy little camera to carry with me while I'm fishing and take some neat shots. It's an average but satisfactory camera as far as picture quality goes... you're not likely to have a problem with it unless you're a very serious photography buff. It has some blurring troubles in low light more than some other cameras.