Optio 430 - Anyone tried or got the 430?

I want to buy my first digital camera, and want something portable, the Optio 430 looks pretty nice. Has anyone had experience with it? Or have any advice?

Hi Brian,

I've used the Optio 330 (younger brother of the Optio 430), and found it to be a well featured ultra compact. Image quality although not brilliant is good for a camera of its size and price range.

As far as I am aware the Optio 430 improves slightly on the 330 by having a higher resolution CCD. This means you can print your images slightly larger without losing detail.

If you're looking for a digital camera that performs as well as your SLR then you're likely to be dissapointed by the Optio. However if you are looking for an ultra compact digital which offers more features than most other compacts available the Optio is a great choice.

Best way to evaluate is probably from the output from the camera itself, and from here too if you download the high res images you can print out and see if it satisfies your requirements too.

My own personal opinion is the lens exhibits some distressing out of focus areas. the areas are not smooth like from film emulsion (or the majority of digital cameras), it's quite digital and agressive, very unpleasant to me... look at the trees in the background.