Pentax Optio A40 12MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Shake Reduction ZoomI bought this after a professional photographer showed me his 10 megapixel Pentax last year. When I saw they had just introduced a 12 mp with new features I spent the additional money. It's large LCD viewfinder is good (but it's not up to DSLR precision with thru-the-lens viewing). I carry it in my pocket when I'm traveling/sightseeing or at family functions and don't want to lug my DSLR & lenses around. For that the Optio A40 is great.

This is really tiny and I love carrying it all the time. I had the A10, A30 and not the A40 and they are all great cameras. This has easy access to flash options (off, on, red eye, soft etc) as well as focal lengths (macro, super macro, infinity etc). The screen is nearly as big as the camera and makes for great viewing of your photos and movies. The flash works pretty good, even up to distances of greater than 20 feet. It's really easy to set up and understand. The zoom is steady and you can view the screen all the time you're zooming with little or no distortion. I notice a slight purple cast from outdoor light coming in from windows (indoors), but I have a Canon sd950is that does the same thing, so I think this is something with most if not all digital cameras. It's so small and light it's really nice to carry around and the photos are really fantastic. The anti shake is the best I've seen on any brand of digital camera, I have a 16 month old I'm always chasing around, so I really appreciate the anti shake feature. It's a hundred dollars less then the Canon and I'm not sure why because I like the Pentax better.

Awesome!!!! I was looking for the right camera for the last 5 years. I had a Nikon P1 8Mpixels excellent, nothing to say, also a Panasonic Lumix 12MPixels, excelent too, but very difficult to handle when you want simple pictures.
This Pentax is the best camera I ever had. Very powerful, awesome pictures, very light, cheap, high quality frame, different focus modes, fully automatic, very compact, nice zoom capabilities and fast, super fast. Also great pictures on 0 light during night. Very sensitive. It also has movement isolating system, antivibration and it has a mode where it reaches people faces for a better shooting.

If you are looking for the best digital camera ever, this is the one!!!
Buy it!!! I'm very happy with this camera. Simply the best one!!

Hi All,

I have been wondering all these years, How this Camera was not so popular in the market. It has stunning clarity with good Mega Pixels (12MP), It also got manual Mode, to operate in using advance controls. Pentax A40, is a point and shoot, and is also blessed with a little SLR features in it. On all, the bottom line is, its simple and gorgeous, with lots of exciting features and modes.

Thanks,
Kumar

This is a great camera, it has a quick startup (not counting charging the flash) and it does everything a point and shoot should.

--> Make sure you use one of the high speed sandisk cards<--The pictures can be over 2 megs a piece, if you dont, the camera lags tremendously (I was about to send it back)

Also, the directions say the charger lights green and goes out when charged, in reality, it lights red when charging and turns green when done.

I bought this for my wife's BD, she loves it. Packed with nice features that makes it easy for a non technical person to take nice photos.

I was looking for a small camera with a lot of features.
What I like:
12 MP, 3 systems of shake reduction, High Dynamic Range, manual focus in almost all modes (you can record a movie in macro, super macro, manual focus, excellent!), ISO range (you can decide a maximun auto ISO), document photos are very clear (I like negative mode to take pictures of my 35mm negatives films), fast focus mode, big movies with a small size.
What I don't like:
Big problem - you can disable Face Priority in Auto mode, this causes the camera found "ghost faces" in what are you focus (my camera found 5 faces when I was taking a picture to a TV remote control). This also causes the camera fires red eye reduction flash (when is not necessary) and the battery runs low too fast. You can not change the zoom in movie mode. You can record more than 2 hours in HQ but the battery only give 1 hour of life.

I ask people from Pentax to give the posibility to disable Face Pripority in auto mode in the next firmware (please, please!!!).

Got the camera for my wife to replace one that broke. She doesn't go anywhere without it, is always snapping pix. Not an SLR or anything professional, but great quality for its size, great for all-around picture taking.

I've had the camera for about 3 months now, and overall it's been great. I particularly love the 'double flower' mode that gets me to the short hair.

I take some pictures of small machinery, like phone parts, and electronic gadgets, and the double flower mode gets me in there just fine.

On the down side, i find that occasionally, the focus seems to be just bad. I think i am not giving it enuf time to think, but even when i give it time, it just blows the focus entirely. Since i have lots of memory (4 gigs), my answer to this is simply to take multiple shots of the same item.

Battery time tween charges seems a bit short, but not impossible. I charge on average every 3- 4 days with about 30 pix a day.

I am still failing to get the movies to show on my puter. Something about
DV... mode. Irfanview won't deal. Also, a movie intered into the flash card months ago will not purge when i delete pix, so every time i upload, i have to upload THAT movie, even tho i cleared the memory umpteen times.

-Bobby Koch