Pentax Optio S7

Drive / Burst Mode
A basic selection of drive modes are included: single shot, self-timer and continuous. Pentax declined to supply any ratings for the frames per second of the continuous mode, but our limited testing seemed to indicate it was no more then a couple of frames a second.

Playback Mode
A good selection of playback options are provided, including the ability to create slideshows, resize and crop images, correct red-eye and even do some basic color correction. You can even add a frame to a photo. While these are nice features to have, they don’t produce results as good as an image editing program, so they should be used only when necessary.

Custom Image Presets
15 shooting modes are offered, and these can be easily accessed by pressing the bottom directional control in recording mode. They include the usual modes (Program, Night Scene, etc) plus a few unusual ones, such as the frame composite mode (which adds one of a number of built-in frames to the image) and shake reduction mode, which attempts to reduce the blur in images by increasing the sensitivity. However, this does have a price; the resolution is limited to 4 megapixels.

Manual Control Options
No fully manual mode is offered, and there is no aperture or shutter priority mode. This will limit the appeal for many photographers, but the camera is clearly aimed at point-and-shoot users, so it’s not a huge problem.

Focus
Auto Focus
The Auto Focus on the Optio S7 seems snappy and responsive, and there are a variety of modes to use: Standard Autofocus, Macro, Infinity and a Pan Focus mode. The latter tries to keep both distant and close objects in focus. You also have a number of options for the active focus area: multiple (which scans the image and picks something to focus on), spot (which uses the center of the image) and automatic tracking, where the camera will pick a spot to focus on, and then try and keep track of the object, adjusting the focus as it moves. The latter did not seem that effective in our brief tests, but we’ll need to do more testing to get a true grasp of how effective it is.

Manual Focus 
A manual focus mode is included, but it is not very useful, although you do get an enlargement of the center of the image to check the focus on the nice 232k pixel display. It does however, take a long time to scroll through the focus range.

Exposure
Exposure compensation of two stops up and down is available, with a third of stop steps on the way. Again, this is pretty standard, and should be sufficient for most purposes. Without manual control over shutter speed or aperture settings, EV compensation is the only way to manually impact exposure on the Optio S7.

Metering
Three metering modes are offered: average, center-weighted and spot. That’s a pretty standard selection that should cover most contingencies, especially on a point-and-shoot model like this.

White Balance
Auto white balance and five preset modes are available, but there is no manual or calibrated setting. But again, most users of this camera likely won’t miss them.

ISO
The ISO range of this camera is somewhat limited; starting at 50 and only going up to 400. This may be an issue if you are planning on shooting in low light, 400 isn’t that high. We did notice some noise in images at the ISO 400 setting. However, if you don’t mind loosing some resolution, you can enable the Blur Reduction mode, which can boost the ISO up to 1600.

Shutter Speed
The shutter speed range of four seconds to 1/2000 of a second is, once again, fairly standard. There is no way to directly set the shutter speed.

Aperture
The aperture ranges from f2.7 to f5.6, a rather short range that would not provide much in the way of depth of field, although with smaller sensors, users won't necessarily need an f/8 or f/11 setting to get both the foreground and background sharp.