Pentax Optio V20

Movie Mode (7.25)
The Optio V20 movie mode is more flexible than many compact cameras, providing not only the expected choices for resolution (640 x 480 or 320 x 240) and frame rate (30 or 15 frames per second) but also color options (full color, black and white or sepia), white balance, focus mode and exposure compensation. As with most cameras, optical zoom is locked out white shooting movies (the lens noise would be audible in the recording), though digital zoom is available if your subjects are ready for their close-ups and you're  willing to sacrifice image quality to accommodate them.

Drive / Burst Mode (4.00)
Fast shooting is not one of the V20's strengths. We found that, at full resolution, the camera took nearly a second and a half between shots and, more distressing, paused after each pair of shots to write files to the SD card. Clearly, this is not the camera to shoot your favorite football player hustling toward the goal line or diver arcing toward the water.

The self-timer can be set to fire after a delay of 2 or 10 seconds. An on-screen countdown is displayed when using the self-timer, a nice touch, and using the Memory section of the Record menu you can have your self-timer setting applied to each shot rather than manually resetting it each time, a valuable option.

Playback Mode (8.75)
Playback mode is accessed via a dedicated button marked with the instantly recognizable VCR-style Play arrow. There are three on-screen display choices while reviewing your stored photos. The first shows image name, date and time taken and battery level (all but the image name disappear after a few seconds). Pressing the OK button brings up a more detailed display adding, information about image size, compression setting, white balance mode, ISO, shutter speed and aperture plus a luminance histogram (all text stays on-screen until dismissed by the user in this display). In this enhanced display, blown-out areas are highlighted with a red overlay and underexposed areas are highlighted in blinking yellow. An image with both problems looks positively psychedelic. Finally, one more press of the OK button removes all the overlays to present a clean full-screen version of the photo.

Zooming in during playback magnifies the image up to eight times. The Instant Zoom option (available in the Settings menu) lets you jump instantly to maximum magnification with a single push of the zoom control, a handy way to check focus accuracy. To instantly return to normal view from any magnification level, press the OK button, a very handy shortcut.

Zooming out during playback brings up a nine-image thumbnail view, then a calendar view organizing photos by the dates they were taken.

Image editing options are available by pressing the MODE button during playback. Options include image resizing, cropping, rotation, color adjustment, movie editing (dividing clips or capturing stills), adding voice memos and superimposing cheesy photo frames over shot – a generous selection. There's also a simple slideshow utility, with control over interval, between-image effects and sound effect.

Custom Image Presets (6.50)
The Optio V20 provides twelve custom image presets, or scene modes, including settings to match specific subjects and shooting conditions plus two image-combining tools: digital panorama and digital wide.