Pentax X70

Viewfinder

As you'll find in most ultra-zooms, the Pentax X70 uses an electronic viewfinder, known as an EVF, which mirrors the controls and information that can be provided by LCD. The EVF provides 200,000-dot resolution. In our brief use the colors seemed quite washed out, but this was a pre-production sample.

The EVF was slightly underwhelming

LCD

The X70's LCD is a 2.7 inch, 230,000 dot display, with an anti-reflective coating to help against glare in the sun. Of course, being stuck in a conference center, we didn't get to see how well this worked in actual outdoor conditions.

We'll wait to get the screen into the sun to judge the claimed anti-reflective abilities.

Flash

The flash unit is located above the lens, and mechanically restrained most of the time. The advantage of having this sort of pop-up flash is that it's further from the lens, which reduces red-eye, and you probably won't ever block it with your fingers. The disadvantage to having it held down by a latch, rather than being raised and lowered electronically, is that the camera's automatic exposure system can't spring the flash itself in low light situations. 

The flash poised and ready for action

Lens

For an ultra-zoom of this magnitude, it's all about the lens. When fully extended, the X70's lens pokes out rather impressively, in order to get that full 24x zoom. The lens has a 35mm equivalent focal length of 26 to 624mm, which is a decent wide-angle spec. At the lens' widest setting the aperture runs from f/2.8 to f/8, and at maximum zoom, it's f/5 to f/8, which is pretty speedy.
 

Quite a snout on this beast

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

The Pentax uses what looks to be a standard USB port for computer connections and video out, as well as a DC in plug, if you want to invest in an optional AC power adapter..

USB and DC in

Battery

Many other manufacturers tuck four AA batteries into the grip of their ultra-zooms, but Pentax opted for a lithium ion rechargeable instead, which is rated at an exceedingly low 170 images. If this rating is correct, it would behoove users of this camera to keep a second battery on hand for days of heavy use.

We hope the battery does better than the official rating

Memory

As with most digital cameras at present, the X70 takes SD and SDHC cards, which are affordable and high capacity.