Pentax X70

Manual Controls

The Pentax X70 has a full array of manual controls, a feature that's typical for this class of ultra-zoom

Focus

The camera can be set to normal, macro, 1cm macro, manual focus, infinity and area select (where you chose a focal point from a 25 square grid). Even though there is a manual focus mode, there is, alas, no focus ring on the lens. Rather the up and down buttons of the four-way pad are used to control the focus.

ISO

At full resolution, ISO runs from 64 to 1600, which can be bumped up to 3200 and 6400 at 5MP. If you use the auto ISO setting, this can be limited to any step between ISO 100 and ISO 1600.

White Balance

The white balance system seems pretty standard, with presets for sun, shade, tungsten, fluorescentD, fluorescentN, fluorescentW and the ability to manually take a white balance reading.

Metering

The usual suspects are here: multi, center-weighted and spot. Exposure compensation runs ±2EV in 1/3 steps.

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed can be set from 1/4000 to 4 seconds. This is extremely fast at the one end, but we would have liked the long exposure setting to have run longer, perhaps to 10 or 15 seconds.

Aperture

At full wide angle, the aperture runs from f/2.8 to f/8, at full telephoto zoom the maximum aperture shrinks to f/5, but the minimum stays the same.

Image Stabilization

Pentax uses CCD stabilization in itscameras, where the sensor magnetically floats to a certain extent, which can absorb the vibrations of shaky hands, an absolutely critical feature for an ultra-zoom camera.

Picture Quality & Size Options

The picture size maxes out at 12-megapixels, witht the smallest setting at 640 x 480, with image ratios of 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:1, available.
 

Picture Effects

The only picture effect is the ability to set the image tone to bright, natural or monochrome.