Bought a Pentax Optio on Amazon, I wasn't shopping for a cheap camera, I wanted a GOOD camera.

I read the reviews, and I didn't believe it. Speed of taking photos is important to me, and I was tempted by a faster model. I went to the store, and had a good play, and then bought it from Amazon (which ended up being screwed over by local post, travelling half way around the world, but finally I got it!).

Shots are great, modes are great, viewer is clear with a better angle of view than a sony cam, plus you rotate the viewer right around so it is protected inside the camera.. no smears etc.

For outdoor photography, being able to hide the viewer (and save battery) is great, you can put you eye up and see the zoom in effect, and rely on the good auto focus.

A tip: Half hold the shutter and let the 'zzzclickzzzchk' happen, this is the auto focus / exposure setting itself, then say 'Saay Cheeese' and fully press it, and the shot will be instant!

This is a 'feature' on *all* cameras, but this camera has a great way of circumventing it.

Forget the reviews of other pentax, I compared this with a similar olympus (two models) and I must say one model of olympus had better denfinition of colours in our test pictures, but the cheaper one did not have anything too special... so I would say this one for durability, and accessiblity.

Of course, this camera is quite old now, but as a point, if you find it cheap (99 dollars?) get it!

Otherwise, it pays to look at new pentax models, with their swivel viewer feature, or even (I must say) Olympus.

Good all round, for beginner, amateur and hobbiest!

Uses Smart digital media... or MMedia cards... SD is better, (but less 'F'ree, i.e. you pay for it when you buy one).

The protect feature allows you to 'hide' photos from the visible set, to keep you from deleting them, or from people seeing them when they review them! ;-)

Some of the built in special features are really hard to accomplish manually in photo editing like photoshop.

The read eye reduction works well, as it is linked with the exposure control you get a good 'double flash'.

Can be turned on just to see the pictures but pressing review [play] and turning it on at the same time, this saves power, but not opening the lense, keeps it cleaner, and stops accidental taking of shots.

You know how some camera have a 'dial' for taking shots, move it to review... fiddle it back to take shots? Ever worried about missing a moment because of that dial?

Not with a Pentax! The mode is from pressing review... press it again, back to taking pics!

What if you forget you are in review mode, and press shoot?!

Well the shoot button immediately takes you back to shoot mode, and starts taking the picture! Great camera.