Pentax's pretty pocket-friendly Optio P80, wallet-friendly E80 announced

(Credit: Pentax)

Pentax's dSLRs may be the attention-getting cameras for the company, but its point-and-shoot Optio line deserves some recognition, too. Even if it's only for their lenses and prices.

The P80 is a refresh of the Optio P70, a decent ultracompact camera that had the unique feature of letting you shoot vertically using the control pad on back for a camera phone-like experience. It looks like most of the specs are the same, too: 12 megapixels, 2.7-inch LCD, and a 4x, f2.6-5.8, 27.5-110mm-equivalent lens. There's still no optical or sensor-shift image stabilization, but at least it now records movies at 720p at 30 frames per second.

The P70 was also slow and its photo quality was lacking above ISO 200. Here's hoping those have improved a bit on the P80, too.

Available in the black, pearl, and mint, the Optio P80 will be available in September at $199.95.

(Credit: Pentax)

Also announced was an update to the company's entry-level, AA-battery-powered E70, the Optio E80. Unlike the P80, there are some noticeable spec changes.

The E80 gets a larger 2.7-inch LCD, a brighter, wider 3x, f2.9-5.2, 31.5-94.5mm-equivalent lens, and the ability to capture 720p movies, though only at 15fps. What's retained are the previous model's large controls with easy-to-read markings making this a good choice for first-time digital camera users. Unfortunately, Pentax took away its Pixel Track SR shake reduction.

Available in silver or black, the Optio E80 will also be out in September for $129.95.

[nervaz3]

This review, and most all reviews for the last three years are really disappointing. Virtually none of the of the small "rangefinder" type of digital cameras has an optical viewfinder. This means tha the cameras are so much junk when used in a sunny environment. It is almost impossible to even frame a scene properly using the electronic screen because of the lack of any contrast or color under the bright sun. At least Sony and Canon had the guts and sense of fairplay in their continuing manufacturing of small cameras with optical viewfinders (which work fine in the bright sun.) However, these two excellent companies have obviously thrown in the towel. As to the Pentax model - No optical viewfinder and no image stabilization! What a piece of junk.

[joshua.goldman]

nervaz3, this isn't a review. It's a blog post about two new cameras.
As to your viewfinder comment, most LCDs get sufficiently bright enough to use in direct sunlight and more importantly--to me at least--they typically show 100 percent of the scene unlike optical viewfinders on these cameras that show 70-80 percent. Sony does not currently have an pocket cameras this size with a viewfinder; Canon is it.

[chriscooksey]

15 fps? yikes