chabpa,

See my post concerning the M20:

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3575

Frankly, the M20 is a very poor camera. OK, it's a 'point and shoot', but image quality is generally apalling and it fails dismally as an easy to use, reasonable quality compact.

You will probably find that if you set the focus to 'macro' and then take some close ups, then image quality is very good (see my cat picture). For some reason, any shots out of 'macro' mode suffer from pretty bad chromatic aberration (purple fringes to things like tree branches), and most shots seem out of focus.

I could be wrong, but I think Pentax know it's a duff camera, hence the sudden price fall (you can now pick one up for £80), and the introduction of the remarkably similar M30..............

JimN - perfect summary of my thoughts. I would never expect the M20 to achieve SLR type results, nor would I expect it to achieve very good results in poor lighting conditions or using its flash.

As I said I was, however, really expecting the quality of its results to be a bit better than our Samsung A400 (4MP, not 7 and built by an 'electronics' manufacturer, rather that a recognised 'quality' camera manufacturer).

We've had our Samsung for 2 years now, it's always on 'Auto', the results on 'Auto' are good enough that I've never considered the need to change settings. Sure, a few shots in a run are poor, but most surpass the quality I'm getting from the M20. Over the last few days I've shown some people (who I know own compact digitals at leat 18 months old) shots from the M20 and the reactions have been "oh, glad I didn't get one of those etc, etc!"

I think there is a focus/lens issue with the M20. I nearly always find that if I change the focus mode to 'Macro', or 'Super Macro', don't change any other setting and shoot some close ups (see my shot of the cat), then the results are great. With focus on 'normal' I get the blurry results.

Thanks to all those who have replied. It seems that quite a few owners are unhappy with the picture quality of the M20:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1028&message=21242236

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000HDDKT8/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-9664729-4500864?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=502394

for an in depth review:

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Pentax-Optio-M20-Digital-Camera-Review....

I simply can't understand why close ups with my M20 are excellent whilst anything over 6' way is slightly blurry. If there is reasonable weather this weekend, I'm going to mount it on a tripod and work through all the settings. I'm not expecting to achieve better shots after reading the above review.

I've recently purchased an Optio M20 and I'm very disapointed with the image quality, nearly all my shots appear slightly out of focus. I've spent quite a while testing the camera in different lighting conditions with different settings, I've found that if I change the 'sharpness' setting from 'normal' to 'highest' then image quality improves slightly, but not as much as I'd hope.

I've taken lots of shots today with the M20 and repeated the same shot with my wife's Samsung A400 (4 MP), and in nearly every instance the Samsung's shots are sharper, with better definition and more detail. Shots of trees show a light purple edges to trees branches with the Pentax, not with the Samsung.

I know the little Pentax M20 is only £120, but I'd really expected it to outperform a 2 year old 4MP Samsung. I'd be very grateful if anyone could offer advice, or perhaps I could email a couple of my shots to some person for a 'qaulity check'. The bottom line is that I love the design, large LCD and features of the M20, but am bitterly disapointed with the image quality.

Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can offer.