Pentax Optio S50

Strictly speaking this Pentax was not my first digital camera. Originally I bought the Pentax Optio 50 (without the S). We wrote the date around April 2005. I was thrilled of course. I had finally taken the leap from classical photography (working with film SLR's since 1980) to digital technology.

The disappointment could not have been bigger. I paid some €180 euro for this 5 Mp cam and it was next to well styled scrap metal. The photos were awful in whatever resolution or setting. So the next day I returned it to the shop. After a good row I left that crap shop at boiling point more or less having been forced into buying a Pentax Optio S50. No money back, no settlement.
"It's at your own risk if you buy such cheap camera's."

"Then, why on earth do you people sell it?"

"Because people like you buy it, sucker!"

Kind regards, www.kamera-express.nl

It's not nice getting your hands on your so much wanted camera like this. And it took a long time to get over my anger, every time I used it. After three years these feelings have subsided of course but the fact remains that the Optio S50 is by no means a camera of good results. Having cost €220, which was about the price of my SLR Minolta 505si at the time, it was only capable of producing decent photo's under the best of circumstances. I share Steve's conclusion that image quality is second rate. Not wanting to invest once more in this kind of rubbish, I continued to use it and gradually learned to get the best out of this expensive failure and live with its limitations.

After having bought my Fujifilm Finepix S9600 in June 2006, I only used the Pentax when the only other option was no photo at all. The Pentax was tiny and easily put in the bag and taken with you whereas the Fuji is rather bulky. The Pentax also had better macro capabilities so I continued to use it for model railroad photography, although I tried to use the Fuji as much as I could.

After having used it for three years prices of very good cameras plummeted and in March 2008 I bought the Samsung S1050. I sold the Pentax with a sigh of relief.