Pentax Optio P80 review

Find out how far Pentax has pushed its next Optio compact

The Pentax Optio P80 is the perfect example of an easy to use compact for the experimental, beginner photographer. The camera comes with a lighter shell than its predecessor model, the P70, but in a very similar, aluminium alloy body. It's available in three colours: white, black and green, and the camera boasts a 12.1 megapixel sensor behind a 4x optical zoom lens. This is equivalent to a 27.5-110mm focal length lens, and takes advantage of a wide-angle to medium tele-photo zoom, ideal for capturing the grandeur of a landscape. Not only this, but the P80 has four Portrait modes and also improved Face Recognition from earlier Optio models. This new technology not only captures faces with correct exposure, but also can do it from different poses and angles.

Portrait modes include the standard Portrait, Half-Length Portrait (which reduces to 3 megapixels but with automatic, correct framing), Night Scene Portrait, and also Natural Skin Tone mode. The last in the list enhances skin tones at the same removing blemishes from the subject's face. Complementing this, the Small Face Filter, available in the playback menu, makes a face smaller to be better proportioned with the person's body, though it’s very subtle. All these make the camera well rounded if you're a keen portrait and landscape snapper.

The P80 can record movies in HD (1280 x 720), with settings to decrease the resolution from 1280 to 640 to 320. This increases the recording time, ideal if you're shooting with a small capacity memory card. In the camera's shoot menu you can set Movie SR (shake reduction) on/off to reduce possible blurring.