My poor X-90 has gone bonkers.

If my x-90 is a typical example of the X-70/X-90 Pentax problems it is easy to see why they were discontinued. From the start the camera felt flimsy but I pressed on with it for nostalgic reasons just to see the name Pentax on one of my cameras. The K-1000 was my first. It still works fine.

I may shoot in full auto mode with the X-90, zoom, and that's about it. Trying to make any adjustments with the various switches launches it into shorting between them or no connection at all causing the camera to jump rapidly between modes and/or not adjust at all.

As a last ditch effort I sprayed De-Oxit around the wheel and buttons trying to get the corrosion eating product to the contacts of the switches. That seemed to work for a bit but within a week the camera was back to bonkers mode in anything but Green mode.

The X-90 has been the most frustrating camera I've ever owned out of 15 and now Pentax Ricoh offers nothing like it so the Canon SX 60 is looking better all the time.

I enjoyed using one of these for a while and they are indeed a great camera to use.

The X-5 would be the current equivalent, but to really upgrade I would suggest moving to the K-S1 DSLR. It isn't much bigger than your X-90 but it is much, much better than any bridge camera. Selfriges have them at £299 at the moment in the three "sweets" colours.

You could also send your X-90 to JPS for repair, or at least to get a quote.

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Best regards, John

Oh yes..the X5 now. I will check specs.

I was quite impressed with the X-5, got it for video recording. Tilting screen and the red record button are making it very useful. Works very well for general photography too. Great ergonomics, decent lens. Only thing where it suffers is handheld photography in low light. XG-1 dropped the tilting LCD, which is a shame and added nothing useful except (even more) telephoto range. I would recommend X-5 over the XG-1.