Auto Mode (7.0)
The Optio S55 offers two highly automated settings - a Program auto mode ("P") and an "Auto select" mode. The “P” setting is the camera's true Auto mode and sets both the aperture and the shutter speed for the user, conforming to the camera settings for focus, metering mode, ISO, white balance, contrast, sharpening and saturation. When the camera is set to its defaults, focus, ISO and white balance are also automated, so “P” is essentially fully automatic. The S55's “Auto Select” mode is denoted on the mode dial with a smiley face and selects from the camera's scene modes, overriding all camera settings except for options related to file size.

Movie Mode (5.5)
The Movie mode on the Optio S55 is either solid or lacking, depending on whether your priority is good resolution or high frame rate. The S55 records video at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, which is well short of the 640 x 480 resolution offered by most current cameras. However, the user can choose a recording rate of 30 or 15 frame per second; 15 fps will look choppy, but 30 fps is a standard rate to capture full motion video

In movie mode, the optical zoom does not function, and the camera does not focus.

Drive / Burst Mode (4.0)
The Optio S55 offers a continuous shooting mode. The speed varies with the size and quality of the image, but our tests concluded that the Optio S55 requires just under 2 seconds between images. The camera continued for 13 shots before resting to write the images to memory. This is pretty sluggish by today’s standards; however, some entry-level cameras don’t even include a burst option at all.

Playback Mode (7.0)
The Optio S55 allows the user to review images on the LCD screen, and to watch all the images in the camera as a slideshow. Reviewing images on the S55 is straightforward. The last image taken appears on the screen when the Playback button is pressed. Pressing the Display button will cycle through options to show the image by itself, with a status display, or with the status display and exposure data. The zoom rocker switch can be used to magnify images up to 12x, if the telephoto side is pressed, or switch to show the nine most recent images taken with the camera. The four-way controller can be used to navigate through all the pictures in the camera’s memory, or, if the displayed image is enlarged, to navigate from one part of the image to another.

The slideshow option is limited, compared to many other cameras. The slideshow sequentially displays all the images in memory (both built-in and on the SD card). The user can set the length of time the images are each shown to 3, 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds. The Optio S55 does not offer a choice of transitions or the option of choosing certain pictures for the slideshow.

Custom Image Presets (7.0)
The Optio S55 offers 12 image presets. They are: Portrait (designed for close-up shots of people, with a color balance that is flattering to most light skin tones); Landscape (focuses the lens at infinity, and boosts greens and blues); Night Scene (allows for long exposures of dark scenes); Flower (garners vivid pictures of colorful subjects); Self Portrait (for including the photographer in the picture – note: this setting does not automatically engage the self-timer; it’s apparently for holding the camera at arm’s length, and snapping a shot of yourself); Surf (for pictures in bright sun, with bright backgrounds); Snow (for pictures in bright sun against snow – compensating for the blue tone that snow scenes often take on); Sunset (catches the warm colors of twilight); Museum (turns off the flash, for use in places where flash is prohibited or not polite); Text (for taking pictures of documents); Food (for taking pictures of food); and Landscape Portrait (to take pictures of people in front of image-worthy backdrops, in a way that shows both well).

That’s a quirky group of presets, both for what’s included and what’s left out. Food? It’s not exactly clear what Pentax has done to make food pictures more attractive – does it make sense to boost color saturation so that fruits and vegetables look great, or tone it down a little so the roast beef looks less like major surgery? The food setting and the Flower setting share quite a bit in common. Self Portrait, given that it seems adapted to hand-held self-portraits, doesn’t seem distinct from regular portrait, except for a somewhat closer focus.

It’s more notable that Pentax left out any setting for action or sports. That’s not necessarily bad, though – it may simply be a matter of setting appropriate expectations of the camera. The Optio S55 does not operate quickly enough, or have a long enough telephoto range, to do a credible job photographing anything that moves faster than a friendly game of croquet. Nor is it fast enough to catch children (or adults) who can’t sit still.

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