Pentax Optio E10

Viewfinder
There is no viewfinder on the E10; everything is done through the LCD screen. Again, a skimp like this one is not at all surprising on an economic model such as the Optio E10, where production costs have to be kept down.

LCD Screen
The 2.4-inch LCD screen is bright and has good color, but with only 110,000 pixels, the image is a little hard to see. It’s good enough for checking the photos in general, but it’s sometimes hard to check focus. We weren’t able to test the screen under different lighting conditions, but it looked good under the florescent and vapor lights at CES and had a reasonable angle of view that would allow 2 or 3 people to see the images. However, it is a little small to show images to more than a very small group. The brightness of the screen can be controlled through the brightness setting on the setup menu.

Flash
The built-in flash is relatively small and doesn’t have a particularly long range: Pentax clams less than 6.6 and 11 feet (with the lens on telephoto and wide angle settings respectively), but even this seems a little optimistic. In our admittedly limited testing, we found that around 5 feet is more realistic.

Zoom Lens
The 3x zoom lens is manufactured by Pentax and has a focal length of 5.5mm to 16.5mm. That’s equivalent to a range of 35mm to 114mm on a 35mm film camera: a reasonable range that’s pretty typical for point-and-shoot cameras. The aperture range of f2/.8 to f/4.8 is a little more limited than some similar models, but adequate for general use.