This is billed as an upgrade to the earlier Optio 550, and when my much used & much appreciated 550 went over a cliff with a grad student (the student survived, the camera, alas, did not)I went straight out and ordered a 555. Good news/bad news. Good news is that I find the 555 has all of the things that I loved about the 550 -excellent resolution, remarkably good automatic exposure even in very weird lighting situations, the VERY nice 5x optical zoom that has allowed me to get some really good "up close & personals" with my study birds, and downright AMAZING batery life (I took my 555 off for a week in Wales, filled up a 256 Meg card with pix -many using flash- & STILL had plenty of battery when I got home.)It also seems very rugged & forgiving (although I am keeping it away from cliff-diving grad students!. SO, what's the bad news? To be honest I don't see much of a difference bewteen the 550 & the 555. The lens is still slow coming out, there is still a noticeable lag between pressing the shutter release & the picture actually taking, so this definitely ISN'T the camera that you want if split-second timing is critical. Other than that however I would say that if you want a really light-weight high resolution field camera with a good lens, look no further (DO get a big memory card however, you will be eating up a lot of bytes very quickly).

This is my fourth digital camera in as many years. Overall, this is far better than the Olympus Camedia line and the Sony DSC-W1. I haven't had the opportunity to work with Cannon's, and I think that would be the closest contender for wht you can get in this camera.

The pluses of this Pentax are the crisp, extremely accurate colors, which are, if anything, on the bright side. But mostly they are spot on. Secondly, the flash is fast and powerful and most importantly, the focus is extremely fast and accurate even in the flash mode. By contrast, the Sony DSC-W1 is much slower in terms of 'locking-in' the focus in low light settings, as is the Olympus Camedia C-50. As a result, you have to be much, and i mean much steadier to get a good flash shot with the other cameras in low light settings (less so with the Olympus). I am not - i like to whip out the camera when my kids are doing fun things and shoot three or four quick shots indoors, and my Optio shots are consistently great, while the Sony's are such a blur that many get
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Another plus is the battery. While I had selected the Sony b/c i thought i would prefer the simplicity of being able to recharge AA's anytime, or buy replacements, i found the Pentax battery extremely long lasting - something like their promo literature says, along the lines of 500-600 shots. since it is lighter than 2 AA's, the camera overall is lighter than most running on 2-AA's.

I will say, however, that it is a bit of a hassle having to carry to Pentax battery charger, when if you use the Cannon or Sony you just need to take the standard AA Ni-Mh charger, which i take along anyway for flashlights etc. So now i often have 2 chargers, and thats a pain.

Another big plus is the very quick record time for the typical full 5 mp high resolution photo. My very unscientific method of using my watch stopwatch indicates its about .3 seconds, which was definitely faster than the Olympus or Sony. However it compares to other cameras, its the fastest I've ever experienced, and i've never felt slowed down even in some river rafting action moments.

The next thing I really like is purely subjective - the size of the lens is at least double the diameter of any compact 5 mp camera.
Now that is completely subjective, but my engineering background tells me that if you double the amount of glass that light passes through, you have reason to believe you will be improving the optical clarity of your images. somehow, for all the pictures i've blown up to 5 x 7, it seems like the Pentax photos are crisper with better color - could this be why?

Another plus - excellent closeup features. With 2 macro settings, I have always been very pleased with every kind of closeup.

The drawbacks are all important to me - but when it comes time to pack a camera, unless i need the wide angle lens of the Sony DSC-W1, this Optio is hands dwon my favorite.
Drawbacks:
- Movie mode is an embarassment to digital photography! try playing 320x240 on your computer and you will get eye strain! The movie looks like a moving short-cut! Check out the Sony or Kodak (and possibly some Cannon's) - they offer a resolution of 640x480 which is essential if you want to enjoy any movie clips on your computer.

- the proprietary download cable is another insult designed simply to make you buy another Pentax product. Again, take a lesson from Sony, which uses the standard mini-USB to USB cable for downloads rather than the Pentax-proprietary to USB cable. If you lose that cable on the road, you have no way of downloading your photos and you are jammed until you can mail order another from Pentax. If they would only have the courtesy to let you use the standard cable as Sony does, you could go to any electronics store, or use a friends. Plus, if you carry a portable hard drive or some such thing that uses the mini-USB to USB, you will already have the download cable, while with Pentax you must carry 2 cables.

-limited wide angle viweing. the Sony has noticably better wide angle viweing, something like 28 mm, vs something like 35-50 mm in this camera, Sony also has a screw on wide angle adapter which this camera does not.

- its time for Pentax to update the viewfinder. I'm sure they are working on it, but at least another .5 inches would help this camera ALOT.

- increase the size of the font of all the info in the viewfinder. All the newer cameras with the larger viwfinders using larger font as squinting to read critical information is just not fun.

Thats my take - this camera is far better than some of the competitors, and I hope Pentax is listening and will make some improvements, as i love this extremely functional camera now, but can't wait for the next model!

This is the best camera I have own so far. Lots of cool stuffs. You don't have to be a professional to operate this camera. It's design for beginners as well as camera buffs. Excellent battery life! And most of all, considering all the features built into this camera, the price is very reasonable.

I love this camera's optical zoom. 5x, in a travel camera! They should all be like this. The digital zoom is also impressive. In a kayak, at 50 feet being rocked by waves, I could still capture and center a bald eagle staring at me (albeit it took a couple tries, but who cares with digital)! What's the minor issue? The optical zoom is a little too quick so that framing a shot with small changes is very difficult and there is a very significant delay between shutter click and image capture with the digital zoom (however the image stabilization works tres bien).
Would I buy another? In a heartbeat. Would I ask Pentax to fix the little bugs? Of course.
If I had free will with the rating it would habe been 4 3/4 stars. Enjoy.

I can't say a whole lot that hasn't been covered by the other comments here... the Pentax Optio 555 is really a great camera. I agree with the reviewer who immediately turned the digital zoom off -- it's really kinda silly to mess with digital zoom on a digital camera, since you will probably be able to post-process the images. I haven't found the cash yet to upgrade from the memory card that comes with it, but it's definitely high on my to-do list. I've never seen a camera that's so easy to use right out of the box but also has so many great features. Even the novelty features continue to amuse me almost a year after getting the camera. The 3D photo mode is really fun to play with, and the panorama assist makes it really easy to take panoramic pictures. And yes, it includes software to stitch the images together (semi)automatically. Lately I've been taking lots of night pictures -- it's really amazing how well this thing soaks up ambient light to take bright night shots WITHOUT the flash.

The ONLY complaint I've got is that in a really saturated environment the auto-focus doesn't work very well. A friend of mine got married recently and the auto focus refused to work at all, but I must admit the ENTIRE room was this hideous olive color, from the carpet to the fabric wall covering, and of course the completely mirrored ceiling only made the room twice as green. Add to that the weak yellow light coming from the chandeliers, and it was understandably tough for the camera. Finally I just switched to manual focus and put it in the continuous shoot mode and then I could just pick and choose the shots I liked and delete the rest.

A couple of reviewers mentioned that the camera doesn't hold up well... I dunno about that. Mine's been bounced around on a speedboat, fallen off a table, jerked around by the strap, and survived perfectly intact. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I think that it holds up really well to "normal" wear and tear AND the occasional accident.

I almost didn't get this camera because I really hate being locked into proprietary rechargable batteries. I'd normally rather go through a bunch of AA batteries because I always worry that in 2 years the company will discontinue the battery and my product will be useless. I've been pleasantly surprised, the battery has held up really well. I've had the same battery almost a year and it still works for a few days with several hours of use each day between recharges. It also holds a charge really well if I don't use the camera for a while. And though someone complained about the 3 hour recharge time, I'm used to charging my previous [Kodak] digial camera and my camcorder overnight, so 3 hours is a HUGE improvement.

(...)

I have taken a look at several digital cameras, from friends, work, etc. (I have to add that I'm basing this review on the Optio 550 which is very similar to the 555).

There are some great features of this camera, and a few drawbacks.

The good:
-The 5X zoom is fantastic. It's hard to find a 5X zoom 5MP camera that is portable and where the lens fully retracts. I don't need the 5X often, but when I do it's great to have.
-Good night photos. I'm not saying they are better than the other cameras, but the night photos are reliable.
-East light adjustment settings. Digital cameras do their best to figure out the light settings, but sometimes if the sun is behind your subject it will make your subject too dark; similarly too bright for overly sun-lit objects. The Optio 555 lets you quickly adjust the light settings without changing to any menus.
-SD card. I prefer SD cards, because they are smaller and cheaper than everything except CF cards, which I find too large. The complaint about the proprietary USB cable on another review is easily circumvented by a faster and easier card reader.
-Long battery life. I can easily take about 130 pictures on one battery charge.
-Focus. Fast and reliable, except in the darkest environments.
-Durable! I dropped the camera in a river (well actually I fell in the river with the camera - it was in fact in the Ardeche River which is very lovely at least) and the camera was back working more or less within a week.
-Light enough. Some other cameras have the air of durability (though they really arent) because they have heavy steel bodies. This doesnt help the camera, and in fact can hurt it by transferring shock into the more sensitive interior.

Bad points
-Long turn-on/turn-off time. It takes forever for the camera to turn on - by that I mean 3-5 long seconds.
-Recharger is annoying. I hate carrying around the recharger; i'd rather have either AA batteries or a direct plug-in.

I don't know the model well, but my next purchase will be the Pentax 5X zoom/5 MP that is smaller, but I am sure has similar strengths (and weaknesses).