Pentax Optio S12 Software Reviews
This page contains information about installing the latest Pentax Optio S12 driver downloads using the Pentax Driver Update Tool. Pentax Optio S12 drivers are tiny programs that enable your Digital Camera hardware to communicate with your operating system software. Maintaining updated Pentax Optio S12 software. Product Information. The tiny, pocket-sized, 12 megapixel Optio S12 features face recognition and dynamic range adjustment that's ideal for portraits. For easy composition and review of images, the S12 offers a generous 2.5 inch LCD monitor with an anti-reflective coating and bright mode. Digital shake reduction.
It's an easy to use, pocket-sized 'point and shoot' camera that has some great features and it comes with a detailed manual which is over 200 pages long.
Although really compact its aluminium casing makes it feel quite solid and well built. I've taken pictures indoors and outside, and all have come out really well. Pictures of my dog are amazing when loaded onto my PC, I could see the individual hairs on his coat!
The 2.5 LCD display has anti-reflection coating which makes viewing photos easier in bright conditions. There's face recognition for up to 15 faces or you can focus on one individual face. The Digital Shake reduction works well and it has 21mb built in memory expandable with SD/SDHC card.
There are a number of different scene modes: Auto Picture, Program, Night Scene, Movie, Voice Recording, Landscape, Flower, Natural skin tone, Portrait, Half-length Portrait, Kids, Digital SR, Sport, Surf&Snow, Pet, Text, Food, Frame Composite, Green
The menus are well laid out and easy to use. You can just leave it in the 'Auto picture' mode and it will automatically select the best shooting settings or if you want to play around with the settings there are more options that most of us would ever want.
Once you've taken your pictures there a number of editing options available in playback mode some examples are resizing, cropping, colour filters, brightness adjustment, red eye removal. With the digital filter you can even slim or widen an image - no longer need to diet for the hols - just doctor the photos when you get back and instantly look as slim as you want to!
So far I've not had any of the problems that some other reviewers have mentioned. Although I'd be the first to admit I'm no expert, the quality looks pretty good to me. Should I experience any problems in the future I'll update this review.
- Pros
Compact. Terrific picture quality. Offers a variety of onboard editing options. Able to record in DivX format for high-quality video in a small file size.
- Cons
Looks and feels flimsy. No option for 16:9 still-image shooting. Video playback on a PC or Mac requires installation of (a free) DivX codec. Menu system could be streamlined.
- Bottom Line
The Pentax Optio S12 delivers solid still images and top-notch DivX video.
Pentax's Optio S12 is a very compact 12-megapixel camera with terrific image quality—both still and video—and some nifty onboard editing options such as color filters and red-eye removal. One a minor caveat: This camera records video in DivX format rather than the more common AVI. DivX files are smaller, which is a good thing, but playing them back on a PC requires that you download a special codec.
- $179.95
- $399.99
- $399.99
- $399.99
Though the S12 can capture big, 12MP images, it's tiny (2.2 by 3.6 by 0.9 inches and 3.9 ounces)—comparable in size to the 8MP Nikon Coolpix S210. The camera comes in two colors, black and silver. My silver review unit looked and felt a bit cheap, especially when compared with other point-and-shoot models such as the brushed-metal, solid-feeling Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T300. The back of the camera features a 2.5-inch LCD screen and navigation buttons. The camera's 3X optical zoom lens has a focal range of 7.9mm to 23.7mm (35mm equivalent: 37.5 mm to 112.5 mm) and corresponding maximum f-stops of f/2.8 and f/5.4. ISO speeds start at 64; they go up to 1600 when you're shooting in automatic mode and 3200 when the camera is in manual or high-sensitivity mode. As with most point-and-shooters, noise is noticeable at ISO 400 and gets worse at higher settings. Automatic mode conveniently lets you control the ISO range the camera uses, giving you the choices 64 to 100, 64 to 200, or 64 to 1600.
The S12 is feature-filled but its interface is busy, and I often found that common settings were buried under submenus. If you use this camera only occasionally, you'll probably have to relearn the menu system, since it's rather unintuitive. (Don't throw out that manual!) And the animated help icons look a bit childish.
For the artsy crowd, the S12 offers some easy-to-use post-production effects built right into the camera. Aside from red-eye removal and other quick fixes, Pentax includes color filters that can remove all but one color from your photos; the desired color can be selected from a palette. When you edit an image, a duplicate is created so that the original is preserved.
I was impressed with still-image quality from the S12 and found it to be on a par with what you get from other well-rounded compact cameras such as the Kodak EasyShare V1073 and the Olympus Stylus 1030SW. Barrel and pincushion distortion were minimal.
With its face-detection feature, the S12 can detect up to 15 faces at a time. When you turn face detection on, a box outlines the subjects on the LCD and tracks them as they move. I didn't test the feature with as many as 15 people, but for smaller groups it worked well, as long as all the subjects were facing the camera or posed at an angle that left their eyes, noses, and mouths visible. Image stabilization also worked well, effectively eliminating the blur that can come with shaky hands.
Though real-world images felt crisp, analysis revealed that the S12 actually underperformed when it came to capturing detail. Using Imatest, the image-testing suite designed to analyze digital camera performance, I found that the S12 averaged only 1,966 lines of resolution, while the 10MP V1073 averaged 2,177 lines. Despite the S12's higher megapixel count, the Kodak camera delivers a sharper image.
Both in daylight and with flash, the S12 produced images that, when compared with those of the impressive (but more expensive) Canon PowerShot SD890 IS, were a bit warmer in color. The SD890 IS's images looked a bit sharper, which to my eye was more pleasing, and were less noisy. Even at ISO 200, darker areas of the image had slight noise where the SD890 IS had none. Still, the S12's images are better than you might expect from a camera at this price point.
Before you can snap your first picture, you have to wait about 6 seconds for the camera to boot up—not a great showing. Once powered up, though, the S12 is a fast shooter. Shutter lag is minimal, and the recycle time between shots averaged only 2.2 seconds, which is excellent.
If you want to shoot pictures in the widescreen aspect ratio (16:9), you're out of luck: This camera shoots only in 4:3. This is a problem if you want to view your photos on a widescreen monitor or HDTV. Virtually every other camera on the market can shoot in 16:9, and some, among them the Sony DSC-T300, even offer widescreen LCDs.
The S12 captures video in DivX format. The advantage of this is that the files are about one-fifth the size of AVI-format files (AVI is what most other cameras use) and have comparable image quality. I recorded a 1-minute, 16-second video using the S12's highest video quality, 640-by-480, and the resulting file was only 25.5MB. A 1-minute, 22-second video recorded in the same resolution on the Canon PowerShot SD870 IS resulted in a space-hogging 143MB file. Thanks to DivX's secret sauce, even though the size of the video file was smaller than Canon's, the quality of the video appeared to be identical. But the drawback of DivX is that you must install a codec on your Mac or PC in order to playback the files. This codec is free (www.divx.com) and installation is painless, but if you're buying this camera for someone who isn't too tech-savvy, it might be an issue.
The S12 features 21MB of onboard storage, or about ten pictures at the highest quality. The camera also supports SD and SDHC memory cards, which are available in sizes up to 32GB. A rechargeable lithium ion battery is included; the one in our review model held its charge through a week of testing. Cables to connect the camera to your computer via USB and your TV via composite video are also included.
Most nonprofessional photographers will find the S12's still-image and video quality quite pleasing. But some may take issue with the camera's inability to shoot still images in 16:9 or video in formats other than DivX. If these are deal breakers, but you're intrigued by high-quality video recording in a camera in this price range, take a look at the Kodak EasyShare M1033, which offers solid images, an easy-to-use interface, and 720p HD recording for less than $200.
Benchmark Test Results
Check out thePentax Optio S12's test scores.
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Pentax Optio S12 Price
Pentax Optio S12
Bottom Line: The Pentax Optio S12 delivers solid still images and top-notch DivX video.
Pentax Optio S12 Usb Cable
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