Please Pentax, Pleeease!

I think that some cameraphones do at leaast rival the cheapest compacts. For example the James (Bl)unt album cover link was done on an iphone - you see it blown up to poster size and billboards and it looks OK. And the iphone isn't the best cameraphone by a long chalk!

For the time being the best cameraphones are much more expensive than a budget digicam, so digicams still make sense, but other than specialist high-end snappers, their days are numbered! After all most people do use these cameras for pretty casual snapping.

The quality of the pics from some of the Sony Cybershots are just as good as a bog-standard compact, apart from lack of zoom. But its not just quality of picture, its the convience and actually having it to hand. Especially when you throw in dead easy instant uploading to Facebook etc.

I think if one looks at the recent Leica and Fuji offerings and the interest they've generated with thier retro looks... and digital guts... it isn't hard to imagine that Pentax has somewhere in thier r&d dept, got an lx styled ff evil cam...with an evf, and oled viewer... whether it will ever see the light of day as a new model is the question...
or just for laughs. .remember the first slr?... . imagine this:


as a fully digital camera with kmount, optional evf or pentaprism viewfinder.... pop the viewfinder off and use it as a waist level finder...

Exactly. And that's why I bought one of these off Ebay afew months ago




Sony T-900

and it does have zoom. 4x

It's main caveats are lack of high ISO performance ( even ISO400 is fairly noisy - but not unusable ), and AF speed - AF speed is really slow - and a terrible battery life. I always keep a couple of spares in my coat pocket.

I love it and it never leaves my side

And if you place it on a solid surface to avoid camera shake it takes pretty good night shots under street lights with a nice colour balance.

I purposely bought it becuase I didn't want a compact with a sticky out lens as that rather defeats the object of discretion. Cost me about £100 2nd hand.

The Pentax W90 also has no lens sticking out and is waterproof and shockproof. Very tempting.

I agree with you there John. I doubt there'll ever be such a tough camphone, certainly not one you could take snorkelling. Look at this beaut I found on flickr link (under lily pads).

If you haven't got a compact, I highly recommend getting one. That W90 looks real sexy. Not so ultra-compact as the little Sony's unfortunately, which look just like a mobile phone from a short distance. I sometiems hold it tom y ear and shoot( lens facing outwards of course )

I'd actually like something even more covert than the Sony's. Maybe it's time to get into a buttonhole camera

The trouble I find with compacts, and even more so with tiny ones, is camera shake. That's one of the reasons I went for the I-10 - it has proper sensor-shift SR.

What I'd really like is a W90 with a much improved low-light sensor, and build on the idea of the little lights around the lens to provide a proper integrated mini-ring flash. That'd be sweet for photographing underwater beasties.

not a bad idea... integrated lights on a macro lens would be sweet as well!

Just to add my 2p to the Pentax compact debate which seems to have emerged in this thread.

I ordered an I-10 after glowing praise on this forum, as a carry-everywhere camera. When I received I was hugely disappointed with the functionality and image quality (which seemed in direct contrast to what I had read here). I ended up returning it, and convincing myself that I must have had a bad one (after all, people were telling me how good it was). However, having recently had a go with another, it turns out mine was working just fine.

Whilst I have no problem with waving the flag for Pentax, I think there does come a point where the products are looked at in a bit of a bubble. It may be a fine compact camera if you don't consider what other brands have released in the past 5 years, but unfortunately when compared with its peers the low-rent build quality, archaic screen, not-particularly-user-friendly controls and below-par image quality all add up to a rather disappointing package (bargain price or not).

I was able to get just as good shots out of my old Sony Cyber-Shot phone.

I've no doubt that I'll now get told I've got it all wrong and that the I-10 is infact a fine little camera, capable of great results in the right hands. But I have to rate it as one of the most disappointing consumer electrical purchases I've ever made, but one I should have foreseen given that outside of this forum the critical response to it was middling at best.

What I think Pentax should do is a cross between a W90 and Canon S95. No half measures, just make the best compact out there.

A tough underwater S95 or LX5 would indeed be marvellous. It would be the ultimate adventurer's second camera for places even the K-7 couldn't go

Or something I could use on my annual half-hour's snorkelling expedition!

Don't worry Robbie, I won't be one of those people I tried one a while back, it's an okay little camera when used in bright daylight, but it's like a toy when compared something like a Canon S95 (which admittedly costs 3x as much).

Best macro light idea I've seen lately is the Dr. Octopus affair that Olympus are previewing on the E-PL2 (can't link as off-topic, but worth a search).