Pentax Optio E70 review (digital camera)

With Pentax's Pixel Track SR off (left) you can see some motion blur caused by handshake. When turned on (right), the blur is gone but the rest of the photo isn't as sharp.

The camera's overall performance is merely OK. In CNET Labs' tests, the E70 averaged a power-on-to-first-shot time of 2.4, which isn't actually too bad. However, the shutter lag was long under both bright and dim lighting, 0.6 second and 1.2 seconds, respectively. Shot-to-shot times averaged 3.3 seconds without flash and 4.2 seconds with. Finally, though there isn't a burst mode, just a continuous shooting option, it was able to eke out 0.6 frames per second.

For the money, the E70 produces good photos. The camera offers ISO sensitivity settings from 100 to 6,400; however, ISO 3,200 and 6,400 are fixed at a 5-megapixel resolution. The E70 is best at or below ISO 200, but photos at all sensitivities look softened from noise reduction. There are no white balance options and unfortunately everything we shot indoors under incandescent light looked too warm. (This is particularly disappointing because the auto white balance in last year's Optio E60 was really accurate.) However, outdoors colors looked bright and natural, and photos were reasonably sharp and detailed.

The Optio E70 can record VGA-quality (640x480) motion JPEG video. But the quality isn't good for the most part, and the optical zoom does not function while recording. It's sufficient for small Web videos, but little else.

Yes, you can spend a little more money and get more features and possibly better photo quality and performance than the Pentax Optio E70. But if all you need is a convenient, attractive, and simple ultracompact camera for taking snapshots, the E70 should suffice.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot

Typical shot-to-shot time (flash)

Typical shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim)

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon PowerShot SD1100

1 

3.5 

2.1 

0.7 

0.4 

Kodak EasyShare M1033

1.7 

2.4 

1.7 

0.9 

0.4 

Pentax Optio E60

1.9 

2.8 

1.8 

1 

0.5 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S750

2.2 

2.6 

2 

1 

0.7 

Pentax Optio E70

2.4 

4.2 

3.3 

1.2 

0.6 

Find out more about how we test digital cameras.