Pentax Optio S7 First Impressions Review

Auto Mode
The Optio S7 has two automatic modes, green mode and the full auto mode. The full auto mode puts most aspects of the camera into automatic mode, so the user just has to frame the shot and push the button. It seems to do an effective job, although we were not able to give it a full shakedown at the Photokina show.

The green button on the rear of the camera enables “green mode”, which is a sort of semi- automatic mode where the user can configure a preset group of options, and quickly switch to them by pressing the green button. It’s somewhere inbetween the full auto mode and the scene modes, and is a nice feature for those who like to configure the camera to their specific needs.

Movie Mode
The Option S7 is one of the first cameras that we’ve seen to save videos to the DivX format, which provides good quality in a small space. Two size options (640 x 480 and 320 x 240) and three quality options are provided. Audio is recorded along with the movies, but we weren’t able to tell much about the quality in the noisy Photokina exhibition hall.