The Pentax Optio H90 is a design blast from the past, externally the embodiment of what Pentax calls its ‘functional beauty concept’, but packed with modern modern specs such as a 12.1 megapixel image sensor, 5x wide-angle optical zoom, Pixel Track SR (Shake Reduction), Image Recovery function, Digital Panorama mode and more.
What is Pentax’s functional beauty concept? Not much mention of it around the traps, the nearest and clearest explanation of the concept I could find was “clean, straight lines and easy-to-push round, control buttons”. I’d give the H90 a tick on the question of clean, straight lines, the button ease I reserve judgement on until I have the camera in my hands.
Features
- 2.7 inch high-brightness color LCD monitor
- Eye-Fi connected: optimised for use with Eye-Fi wireless memory cards
- Pixel Track SR (Shake Reduction) mode to effectively compensate for camera shake during still-image shooting
- Face Detection, Smile Capture, Blink Detection
- High-definition movie clips (1280 x 720 pixels)
- Auto Picture mode for automatic selection of one of eight shooting modes for optimum results
- Digital filters, including Toy Camera and Retro, to add distinctive visual effects to recorded images
- D-Range setting to prevent whitewashed (overexposed) and blacked-out (underexposed) areas in an image
- Auto-tracking AF mode to keep constant focus on a moving subject
- Digital Panorama mode to create a single panoramic picture from as many as three images
- Digital Wide function to compose an extra-wide-angle picture (equivalent to an image taken with an approx. 21mm lens in 35mm format) from two images.
- Frame Composite function (with 90 frames stored in the camera) to shoot or compose images with decorative photo frames
- Image Recovery function to recover accidentally erased images
- MediaImpression 2.0 for Pentax software for image viewing, editing and filing (compatible with the latest operating systems, including Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6)
- Computer requirements for USB connection: PCs running Windows XP (SP2), Windows Vista or Windows 7; Macintosh computers running OS X (Ver. 10.3.9, 10.4, 105 or 10.6)
Price and availability
The Pentax H90 will be in stores right after Easter, and will sell for $199. It will be available in three colour ways: silver and white, silver and black, orange and silver.
Subscribe to TechStyle’s RSS by email service
Keep up with TechStyle’s articles, news, reviews and more, by having it delivered direct to your email inbox. Subscription is quick, easy, and you control your subscription.