I just bought this camera off Amazon, and owned it for less than 24 hours before deciding to return it. I did a side by side comparison, between my 5 year old 4 megapixel Canon and this new 7 mp Pentax. Indoors with flash. Outdoors. In shade. In auto everything mode. Set to my preferences. No contest. The Pentax lost every time. The colors were muddy. The sharpness was far less than my 4 mp Canon. The flash kept overexposing everything, and washing out colors.

It also has no controls for aperture or shutter speed. I'm an old fashioned photographer, having learned on a completely mechanical Pentax from the early '70s. Idiot-proof programs (sports = faster shutter speed, and 'landscape' = smaller aperture for depth of field, etc.) doesn't impress me. I tried a couple of them, and they didnt' work that well either.

Bottom line: either Pentax really screwed up on the design of this camera. Or, it's defective. Either way, I'm not keeping it. Poor design, poor quality control. Not much of a choice. Not much to recommend it. I've read the reviews for the Olympus SW, and it doesn't sound rousing either. So, I may hold off for awhile longer and not get a waterproof camera for now.

This is my second Optio (due to an unfortunate accident snorkling in Hawaii) and I can't believe the pictures and adaptability of this camera. The W20 has more features than the W10 I had previously, and this takes even better pictures. I can pick a mode and take great pictures and video, either on land or under water. My only recommendation is to get the silicone cover that is available if you are going to use it underwater. It will keep your fingers from manipulating the lock mechanism that opens the waterproof door to the battery and memory card. The camera is a great size for those of us with larger hands that have a hard time holding the new smaller cameras, and it is an added benefit that the lens never protrudes from the camera body. All of the zoom and focus is internal in the camera. Makes it really easy to slip into a pocket. I liked this style of camera so much I went and bought another one. Even after I compared it to the Olympus and Casio.

I've had this camera about a month now and am extremely pleased with it. I've taken it into numerous caves, where dripping water and muddy conditions are common, and it has survived being dragged around. Moreover, it has taken fantastic closeups of tiny features. I am amazed at how good the macro feature is, especially when there is virtually no light.

The camera also fared well being dunked in muddy pools on a canyoneering trip. It was so nice to be able to keep taking photos and not worry at all.

Photos from a distance look okay, nothing too spectacular, but the camera exceeds in doing super for what I bought it for: going into wet and dirty places and not worrying about it.

I ordered two of these cameras as gifts. The cameras appear to be great but I was surprised that they had no US warranty. There is no indication that these are "grey market" when purchased. The order page said shipped by Amazon. The Order status page said shipped by Amazon Export Sales. I emailed customer service and they understood my disappointment but that this was standard practice. I may return them, but I have already gifted them.

I own this camera and I use it almost every day. The pentax optio w20 has a small lens. The more light that gets in, the more photo gets recorded. You may get stuck holding the camera for a few seconds in low light situations or your hands may get tired holding the camera, think about getting a monopod. Amazon has a nice selection. A monopod will help to stabilize the camera and not drop it as much. Try not to buy more monopod than you will use, as you will have to carry the thing for miles. Pro monopods are heavy duty. Bogen makes a 4 section, light weight monopod for $29.
when importing photo files to your computer, be aware that not all monitors will show the file the same as it will print. My work computer makes the files look fuzzy but my Mac with Lacie monitor displays the files very nice. Search mega pixel on wikipedia for more information. There are few commercially available monitors that will display 7.7 mega pixels. To display a 7.7 mega pixel photo file you need a QUXGA (Quad Ultra Extended Graphics Array), such as the Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display. Dell 30 inch UltraSharp Widescreen Digital Flat Panel displays up to 4.1 mega pixel. You should realize that your computer monitor is not going to show the quality of a print. Take some photos, have the photo files printed, this will give you a much better idea of the quality of photo you have taken.

For a point and shoot camera the optio w20 takes great photos. With a 2 gig sd flash memory card you can take 570 photos (change the camera quality setting to 3 stars, factory set to 2 stars). The Battery will run down after 100 to 200 photos depending on how often the flash is used.

I bought this camera over a year ago before deploying to Iraq. I really put it to the test. It managed to survive intense heat, rain, mud, dust storms, and being constantly throw to the ground with me during combat. I carried it with me for over a year and it still takes great pictures.

I haven't used it a great deal underwater although I did test it out in the Lake a couple months ago. It did well.

As far as features I'm not a great expert in that area. It does have an incredible zoom (compared to my last camera-Sony).

I would recommend this to anyone needing a cameara for an "adventure."

I just bought the W20 right before I went on vacation to Hawaii. I couldn't wait to try out the underwater feature. Little did I know that it would be in a rainstorm where it would get it's true test. My family's camera's all had issues while it rained, but I clicked pictures away the whole day. I did, however, use the camera underwater a few days later. It can be difficult to take the picture at first, but give yourself a good 10 minutes of play time with it. It can be hard to focus on fish that are really close to the lense, but once you get started, it'll blow you away.

There are a couple of things to watch out for. In low light situations, the images turn out blurry. I tried taking pictures at a night time luau that didn't have the brightest stage lights, and the pictures all ended up a blur of motion. Another thing is to remember to switch back and forth when you play around with the modes. If you set it to photo landscapes and forget to switch to portrait to take family shots, it can blur the closer objects (your family, ect). However, it's just as easy to leave it on the auto mode and let the camera pick the best settings for you. But the nice part is, you have options available that I didn't expect for a camera of this price.

Otherwise, I LOVE this camera. It's light-weight and fit right in my purse. It's got wonderful clarity, even at distance zoom. I had the images set to maximum quality, and I had about 275 photos on a single gig card. They are big pix at this level, so prepare for them to take up a lot of room on your hard drive. I had friends ask me to email pictures to them, and they were shocked by how clear they were. It also does digital video and records sounds, so I have some great video as well.

If you're looking for a great, easy to use camera that can give you near professional results and can stand a little wear & tear, this is the one for you.

A little tip: tie a knot in the strap so that you can barely slip your hand thru. Then, when you're swimming, you won't accidently drop the camera and it'll still be comfortable on your wrist.

The waterproof aspect was very appealing when I purchased this camera. I was thinking that if I could get a good point and shoot that also took underwater shots that would kill two birds with one stone. Of the approximately 100 pictures I've taken, only about 95 of them have been poor picture quality with horrible color. Pentax's customer support was no help either, I'm sending the camera back to the store. I can see a very distinct difference in picture quality and clarity between this 7 megapixel Pentax and my 4 year old 5 megapixel Sony P10. Even with the naked eye (zooming in seals the deal), the Pentax loses every time.

The underwater feature is pretty cool and its underwater pictures turn out okay, but I can't justify keeping this camera where I'll only use it underwater very irregularly.

I own several cameras, and I use each for different kinds of shooting. For snapshot stuff like vacations or parties where you don't want to hassle with a big camera, and are willing to sacrifice some quality, a tiny camera like this is great. Add in the waterproof feature and the great quality videos it shoots, and this thing rocks! I use it for sailing and skiing and all kinds of outdoor activities, and not having to worry about sand and dust and water is the greatest. It's not a 'dumbed-down' camera however. There are lots of sophisticated features that I'd love to see on my expensive cameras, like a detailed histogram that shows blown out and zero-level areas in real time. You can also just put it in "green mode" and point and shoot with reliably good results. The flash chooses pleasing filled exposures, too.

The white balance could use some fine tuning, the dynamic range is not as good as I would like for some outdoor situations, and the microphone gives fairly bad sound quality, but I highly recommend the overall package.

Pentax Optio W20 7MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom is a great camera with many features that are only available on a much more expensive camera such as a really close macro mode and image stabilization to name a couple. I carry it in my shirt pocket with a neck lanyard so I can use it any time. It works great while skiing or sailing, etc. I purchased the Protective Skin for it to shelter it from hard knocks while on a boat. The added advantage is it keeps it from sliding out of my pocket when I bend over.

I bough his camera because I like the sumergible feature, but there are two things that surprise me. One is the close up mode, you can take photos up to 1 cm close. Other is the movie features. Good quality. Softer than all the others digital cam I have although the sound is mono 8 bits. The optical zoom 3X work also with video but generate a noise that records in the movie. It record in mov (quick time) format, who gives a good rate quality/compresion comparable to DivX. You can edit unnecesary parts of video controling frame by frame where the cut is made.
The lenses are good quality mode. They could put a less compresed images mode in photo. In poor light conditions is not so good as Kodak but for me it`s good enough.
It have a lot of modes, like Auto, Night, clear faces, submarine, Text, flower etc.. You can atach a voice record to a photo.
It has a button that you can program as a shorcut to a setting, or if you press again and again, up to four different setings, for example, quality of the photo, video, focus, memory. It alow you to select what you want to be stored when you turn of the camera, this settings will not change when you turn on.
I use it wiht a 2 Gigabite SD memory card and works fine and I can store up to 30 min with the best quality video.

I am disappointed with this camera. I returned a Canon powershot to get this and I like the Canon better. It is slow to focus and Photo quality is less than expected.
I'm bummed because I bought it for $50 more than the Canon and I wanted to use it for water photography but I am not sure now if I made the right choice

I purchased the Pentax Optio W10 this past July because of its waterproof capabilities. I was happy with the camera's performance until, less than a month after purchase, the flash function stopped working. It was over a month until I finally received my camera back from Pentax. The camera was never the same once I got it back. After having the flash repaired, my images always seemed washed out or overexposed. I was hesitant to send the camera in again because I didn't want to be without it for so long. I was forced to send it back when a crack appeared on the LCD screen. The camera had a screen protector on it and was sitting untouched in a protective case when the crack appeared. I can only assume the crack was a result of built-up pressure from the previous repair. I have now been without my camera for 2/3 of the time I have owned it.

After another four weeks of waiting, I called about the status of my camera. I was disappointed to learn that the repair would cost me 80% of what I had originally paid for the camera. When I tried talking to the customer service representative about my other options, she responded with utter rudeness. She made no attempt to make me feel that your company supports customer needs. Her supervisor was no better. He treated me not as though I was a customer, but rather like I was a nuisance to him. He was completely disrespectful and condescending. I was absolutely disgusted.

I originally bought a Pentax because of its waterproof capabilities. I decided to look past the warnings I recieved from a number of camera experts about Pentax's awful customer service. I was willing to overlook the poor service for a waterproof camera. I was hugely mistaken. I don't care if Pentax offers a waterproof camera that can swim on its own. Good customer service is more important than product features, and I will be purchasing my next camera from a brand with more reputable customer service.

The Pentax W20 is an excellent compact sports camera. Great menu, easy to use, you can use it in the water and it delivers excellent pictures for its size. Granted there are many compact models out there and some do provide better pictures butnone provide all the combinations that this one does. You can use it in the beach and actually see the preview on the window as it has a special coating, it can get wet or sand and you do not worry about it, you can actually bangit (within limits) and nothing will happen to it and littlekids can handle it without fear. Again this camera is directed for water sport activities but you will be extremelly pleased when you use it eslewhere too.

I bought this camera because the earlier W10 model that 2 of my family members own shoots fantastic quality picures. This one on the other hand has terrible quality pictures that are tinted with a green hue. I have attempted to try reset the settings but to no avail. This camera sucks and I am stuck with it because amazon has a terrible return policy. I will never buy electronics here again!

This is my third Pentax Optio. The W10 was my first. The W20 offers the bigger screen, some additional photo options, and better video quality. I love EVERYTHING about this camera and I recommend it to all my friends, family, and acquaintances... BUT - the only downside I have had with the W20 is the noisy video audio. When you zoom in or out, you hear the motor noise being picked up while video recording. I also get this annoying popping noise. The other thing I wish Pentax would have kept was the panorama setting, that was in the W10, but was dropped in the W20. I will be buying the W30 when it comes out later this month. So if you can live with the noisy audio when video recording (which I do by editing all video to music), then you can't go wrong with this camera. The size, the reliability, Pentax's customer service, and the quality of images obtained with this camera - is some of the best I have had the pleasure and experience with.

I purchased this camera due to the recommendations of a friend who's owned two different models. I am not disappointed with it. It has a number of settings, for virtually any picture taking situation. The video function works great - don't need a video camera if you have this. Do note however that zooming or snapping a still while the video is recording does result in noise in the audio or a glitch in the video when the still is snapped. Not a big deal, but a good thing to know.

I took pics in poor flourescent lighting and they came out sharp and clear. Lots of movies while moving around and the anti-jitter worked well. The included software lets you easily create movies that intermix sound, video and stills to make a multimedia presentation out of what you got. I haven't tried it underwater, but purchased a "gel sleeve" as an add-on accessory to give it some added protection. At a size smaller than a cell phone it's easy to carry around so you always have it when you want to snap a pic.

I love it! In and out of the water. Easy to operate, great picture quality. BARGAIN for the $$$!

I like the features of the camera and the ease of use. The body is small and the display is of good quality. I bought the camera because a family member of mine has the W10 where the picture quality is excellent. This camera is very disappointing in that the picture quality is sub-par. The tones of the pictures are not natural and the pictures are not sharp. I have owned several other digital cameras in the past and this one is the worst in picture quality. The video feature of the camera is relatively good.
I would not recommend this camera.

This is really a great camera. It is very small, yet easy to handle with a large screen, waterproofing, high resolution video, etc. You can read the specs and see what it is capable of doing so I will tell you about my issues with it. The biggest problem with the camera in my opinion is the lack of clarity on photographs taken over 20 feet or so. For closeups the camera is *very* crisp but for those faraway landscape photos, the quality is not the same. I bought the camera for outdoor adventure usage which naturally includes quite a few landscape photos so this aspect has been a dissappointment. That aside, the only other issue is very poor sound quality on the video (perhaps just an inherent problem with recording sound through waterproofing).

Otherwise, the camera performs just as I would like it to do. It starts up very quickly and is intuitive to use for altering settings like flash, timer, macro, etc. It's very lightweight and simple to hook up to a computer. The optical zoom covers a decent range and the auto-exposure metering is fairly good though outside the camera has a tendency to overexpose (easily adjusted though, you can set the camera to "underexpose" by 1/3 f-stops and tweak it to your likeness!)

Despite its weaknessess, I still would strongly recommend the camera to those who need a waterproof digital

i used this camera maybe 5 times, very careful with it. it broke somehow while taking water photos and i sent it back for warranty, i got no satisfaction because" the waterproof seals met their specifications...." but my camera was flooded with water, so i dont know how they can justify that claim. basically dont buy it, pentax sucks.

My husband absolutely loves this camera. He has taken it to Schlitterbahn where it spent most of its time under water taking one great picture after another. He carries it in his pant pocket everywhere he goes. So far he's taken about 500 pictures since we purchased it for Father's Day. My husband is a professional photographer who wanted a camera small enough for a shirt pocket that didn't require that he carry additional equipment. In other words, he did not want another professional camera but one that allowed him to take great pictures in a flash (no pun intended). This is the one!
Oh, one more thing. He used the Fireworks setting during 4th of July. The pictures turned out great.

My boyfriend and I purchased this camera for my sister and her husband as a wedding present. They went to Costa Rica on their honeymoon and when they came back, not only were they talking about how great their trip was, but they couldn't stop praising the quality and features of this camera. The camera's waterproof feature made it perfect for travel in such a humid climate where other digital's just can't take the added moisture. They were also very pleased with the plethora of camera and lense modes available. My brother-in-law is a photographer and a university art professor so I was a little nervous about making this purchase for them, but they couldn't be more pleased with the camera, its functions, and the high quality photographs and videos that it produced.

A great camera for travel or vacation ... small yet loaded with features and a nice size LCD screen. Did a lot of "looking around" and no one could compare with all this camera had to offer, ESPECIALLY the waterproof and dustproof features. Let it rain ... I'm good to go !

I liked my first one so much that i bought this second one for my girlfriend and she loves it as well. We have really enjoyed playing around in pools, rivers, and the lake with these cameras. You wont be disappointed. i do recommend a second battery for when the first one loses its charge, though it does have a pretty good battery life.

I bought this camera for use while kayaking. It fits well into the pocket of my PFD. The programming choices available work well for my needs. Movie mode is nice. There is a problem with clicking sounds while taking movies that seem to come from grasping the unit with a finger on the battery/Sdcard cover while taking movies. The qualiy of the photos is not quite as good a the Kodak Z700 camera we have, but that is to be expected given the difference on optics. Overall I am happy with this unit. The only change would be to eliminate the clicking noises, which is avoidable if attention is paid to how the camera is held while taking movies.