Pentax Optio WG-1: Lens and Shutter

Thank you to our local Pentax representative for dropping off their New Pentax Optio WG-1 to the store for us to play with. The Optio WG-1 is their new Shockproof, Waterproof, Freeze-proof and Crush-proof model. (please Note there is also one Optio WG-1 GPS model, Green Only)

It has 14MP and is a very classic 5X optical zoom starting at the traditional wide angle of 28mm! (all the other Specs can be viewed at Pentax Canada) The first point I noticed is the shape of the camera and how good it feels in your hand, the rubber outside makes it very easy to just grab.
 All these camera's now are all so full featured its hard to know where to start.... So I will just start at what grabbed me first about this camera, "Digital Microscope" mode Funtastic!!! Its has an  array of  5 LED lights on the front of the camera so you really can get some fun lighting on some crazy macro shots! So needless to say we tried to macro everything, and why not! Here are some interesting macro shots!

 The shots in the digital microscope mode are not shot at the Full 14MP, they are downed in size to 1920x1080 72dpi.... which to be honest is plenty for most people! The shots of our feline friends are actually all with the "normal" macro mode so there resolution is much greater but all the images have been downsized for this BLOG so it loads quicker for your pleasure!
Somewhere along the line somebody mentioned it was Shockproof, thank goodness!!!!!! OOOooop's!

The Pentax Optio's have always been super user friendly, using very simple Icons on there display for really obvious settings.

 Its kind of hard to go too wrong with this camera unless of course you haven't read the manual and you, being a camera expert, think you know better than that...... See the next "Wide Stitch" fail!!

Clearly the "Wide Stitch" mode has been designed to work in the Vertical Position and not the Horizontal position... but these things happen to us all!!! Heheheheh

 Here is one done correctly, sort of! (above) and below is my terrible attempt at doing and In-Camera 3 picture Stitch on a low light evening in my back garden! Not ideal for this scene... but they cant all be glorious days in the sun especially here in BC!

 Fortunatley the weather has had a change of heart and now I can post a rich colourful Pano of the view from the Sevenoaks Shopping Centre....

 Here are a couple samples of how much zoom it has.. its 5x optical, cameras such as this are not designed with zoom in mind and there aren't any manufactures that can do more than 5 as far as I am aware....in these types of camera bodies.... with these ones I choose to use only the optical zoom and not the digital zoom as the quality reduces greatly with digital zoom.

And here is an extremely LOW light shot using the "Candle-Light" mode.......

Being "Super Thorough", of course, we had to check to see if the camera is indeed waterproof so one of our Camera Specialists (not me) went swimming with it, and of course everybody in the pool wanted to play with it!

So overall this camera seems like a decent model that does the things it says it does!!!! But I have to say I much enjoyed the Macro feature the best.. the shock ,and crush and waterproofing is just a sweet bonus... Also I think the GPS model would be a cool add on too.. for all you super geek/ tech/ nerds out there!!!