Pentax has announced four additions to its Optio range: the SVi, S5z, and two entry-level compacts, the S45 and S55.
The SVi is the follow-up to the Optio SV, sporting a 5x optical smc Pentax lens equivalent to 36-180mm in 35mm format, designed to produce high-quality images with minimal ghost and flare. The Optio SVi features Pentax?s Sliding Lens System, which reduces body length enabling small dimensions of 91.5 x 56 x 28mm. Exposure modes include: Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual, while Picture mode includes 12 pre-set scene modes.
Retailing at £249.99, its other features include a 1.8-inch LCD screen, 3cm macro mode, the facility to capture movies with sound and a battery charger that can house a spare lithium-ion cell.
Like the SVi, the Optio S5z incorporates Pentax?s Sliding Lens System, enabling a 3x optical zoom lens to fit in a body with dimensions of 83 x 55 x 21.5mm. At the heart of the camera is a 5MP 1/2.5-inch CCD capable of capturing images 2560 x 1920 pixels in size.
Retailing at £249.99 and constructed from aluminium alloy, the S5z has a 2.5-inch LCD screen composed from 110,000 pixels. The S5z includes a Mode Palette for choosing between 16 shooting and 11 playback icons, while 640 x 480 movies can be captured at a rate of 30fps and using MPEG-4 compression. Also, the new Comment Space can be used for adding annotations to photographs.
The S45 and S55 are four and five-megapixel cameras retailing at £149.99 and £199.99 respectively. Each includes a 2.5-inch LCD, 3x optical zoom and 12 scene (or Picture) modes. Each camera is powered using two AA batteries and 11Mb of internal memory.