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Pentax Optio A40 Digital Camera

BH #PEOA40 • MFR #19361
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Pentax Optio A40 Digital Camera
Key Features
  • 12.0 Megapixel
  • 3x Optical Zoom
  • 2.5" LCD Display
  • Triple Shake Reduction
The Pentax Optio A40 Digital Camera features an impressive 12.0 Megapixels of resolution from a large 1/1.7 inch CCD that provides wide dynamic range for superior image quality and broad color tones, while the 3x optical zoom smc Pentax lens further ensures high image quality through the use of top quality optics and effective lens coatings.

The Pentax Triple Shake Reduction (SR) technology incorporated into the camera includes an Sensor-Shift SR system, along with Digital SR and Movie SR for improved image capture in low-light settings or for capturing fast moving subjects. In addition the Enhanced Face Recognition automatically locates faces in your image and then adjusts exposure and focus to properly capture portraits and group shots.

The Optio A40 also offers a versatile manual shooting mode, and is capable of VGA movie recording at 30 fps with guaranteed video playback on all DivX certified devices.

Despite its compact dimensions, the Optio A40 features a 2.5-inch color LCD monitor with three brightness levels for easy framing and reviewing of your images. Other features include an Auto Picture Mode that enables the use of fixed, automatic settings when taking a photograph and a Pan-focus function for effortless snapshots. The camera has 22MB of built-in memory and a USB 2.0 compatible interface for easy and fast transfer of images to your PC.

The Optio A40 also supports PictBridge direct printing, DPOF functions, Exif Print, and PRINT Image Matching III, so you'll get beautiful prints with a PictBridge enabled Printer - without the need for a computer at all.

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Pentax A40 Overview

The Pentax Optio A40 Digital Camera features an impressive 12.0 Megapixels of resolution from a large 1/1.7 inch CCD that provides wide dynamic range for superior image quality and broad color tones, while the 3x optical zoom smc Pentax lens further ensures high image quality through the use of top quality optics and effective lens coatings.

The Pentax Triple Shake Reduction (SR) technology incorporated into the camera includes an Sensor-Shift SR system, along with Digital SR and Movie SR for improved image capture in low-light settings or for capturing fast moving subjects. In addition the Enhanced Face Recognition automatically locates faces in your image and then adjusts exposure and focus to properly capture portraits and group shots.

The Optio A40 also offers a versatile manual shooting mode, and is capable of VGA movie recording at 30 fps with guaranteed video playback on all DivX certified devices.

Despite its compact dimensions, the Optio A40 features a 2.5-inch color LCD monitor with three brightness levels for easy framing and reviewing of your images. Other features include an Auto Picture Mode that enables the use of fixed, automatic settings when taking a photograph and a Pan-focus function for effortless snapshots. The camera has 22MB of built-in memory and a USB 2.0 compatible interface for easy and fast transfer of images to your PC.

The Optio A40 also supports PictBridge direct printing, DPOF functions, Exif Print, and PRINT Image Matching III, so you'll get beautiful prints with a PictBridge enabled Printer - without the need for a computer at all.

12.0 Megapixel Resolution
The Optio A40 produces extremely clear, high-quality images thanks to the 12.0 megapixel 1/1.7 inch CCD. This superb level of resolution makes it possible to produce prints with crisp detail even when the photo is enlarged to A3 size. The 1/1.7-inch CCD with it's wide light-sensitive area, also realizes superior tone reproduction, fine textures, and greater noise reduction.
High-performance smc PENTAX Zoom Lens
The Optio A30 is equipped with a high-quality smc PENTAX zoom lens, which is renowned for its clarity and high-contrast image performance. Its lens configuration, with seven elements in five groups, including three aspherical elements, effectively corrects for spherical aberration, and the lenses are coated using a proprietary Pentax-developed technique, which greatly reduces ghosting and flare.
Intelligent Zoom and Digital Zoom
The Optio A40 includes an intelligent zoom feature that "crops into" the central portion of interest in your photo without sacrificing full CCD resolution - avoiding the image degradation found with a standard digital zoom. The intelligent zoom capability is related to the shooting resolution providing 3.3x (10M), 3.9x (7M), 4.6x (5M), 5.7x (3M), 11.4x (1024), or 17.9x (VGA) zoom capability. There is also a standard digital zoom of up to 6x available.
Compact and Lightweight Body
Despite incorporating a large CCD and the SR system The Optio A40 has a slim and light body, made possible by using a unique Sliding Lens System together with high-density mounting technology. In the Sliding Lens System, the central lens group slides upward from the optical axis and the front and back lens groups slip under them, housing the lens in two steps in the lens cylinder reducing overall lens size and, thereby minimizing body depth.
Three Types of Anti-Shake Functions
The SR (Shake Reduction) mechanism features two gyro sensors that detect the amount of shake and an image sensor (CCD) that moves both horizontally and vertically to compensate for any camera movement. In the Digital SR mode, the camera automatically adjusts the sensitivity to as high as ISO 3200, permitting faster shutter speeds that reduce not only camera shake but also the blurring caused by moving subjects. The Movie Anti-Shake feature compensates for camera shake while taking a movie, thanks to an electronic, and software driven function.
Enhanced Face Recognition
The camera includes the Enhanced Face Recognition system that automatically adjusts the camera's Auto Focus and Auto Exposure to take bright, beautiful photos of people with perfectly focused faces free of shadows and unusual coloring. This useful function automatically detects the positions of the subjects anywhere in the photo frame and then adjusts the focus and optimizes the exposure for the detected position.
Dynamic Range Adjustment
The Optio A40 assures that your images capture the most detail possible thanks to Dynamic Range Adjustment. This system assures that highlights and shadow areas will be properly exposed to show more detail.
Auto-tracking AF
The Optio A40 incorporates an auto-tracking AF feature that continuously focuses on subjects such as kids and pets that move around unpredictably. Since the focus frame automatically follows the movement of the subject inside the photo frame, you can be sure to capture those instantaneous photo opportunities.
Record High-quality Movies
The Optio A40 captures movies at 30 fps (frames per second) at sizes up to 640 x 480 pixels with image quality rivaling camcorders, and the Anti-shake Function ensures smooth video motion. Since it employs the DivX (MPEG-4 compliant) movie format, the Optio A30 can record longer, high-quality movies (movie playback is not supported on Macintosh operating systems).
Auto Picture Mode
The Auto Picture mode lets the camera automatically determine the shooting conditions for Landscape, Portrait, Night Scene, and Program modes and choose the optimum settings for each subject, thereby making photography a lot easier for users since it eliminates the necessity of making a number of individual setting adjustments.
A Wide Range of Exposure Modes
In Programmed Exposure mode, the camera automatically determines the shutter speed and aperture. The camera also includes "Shutter-Priority AE" mode and "Manual Exposure" mode, which the user can set freely depending on the effect he/she is aiming to achieve.
Built-in and Expandable Memory
The camera is equipped with 21MB of built-in memory so you can start shooting immediately - without a memory card. However, for greater storage of high-quality images and longer movies, the available memory can be expanded with a Secure Digital Card; either conventional SD memory cards or with SD High Capacity (SDHC) memory cards that have capacities in excess of 2GB.
2.5" Color LCD Display
Despite its compact dimensions, the Optio A40 features a large, low-reflection 2.5-inch color LCD monitor with three brightness levels, so you can easily view the display whether shooting in a dimly lit indoor setting or outdoors in the bright sun.
Red-eye Correction
The Optio A40 comes with a red-eye correction function, which can correct red-eye problems, a side effect of flash photography, after the photo is taken. With the ability to manually select the area to correct, this function allows for more precise correction of red-eye photos.
Direct Printing Capable
The Optio A40 supports PictBridge Direct printing, which means that it can be connected to or docked with compatible printers and photos can be easily printed without using a PC.

Pentax A40 Specs

Camera Type
Ultra-compact Point-and-shoot Digital Camera
Image Quality
Image Sensor
1/1.7" 12.4 Megapixel Interline Transfer CCD w/ primary color filter
Effective Resolution
12.0 million pixels
Color Depth
36-Bit RGB
Color Modes
Color, Sepia, B&W
Image File Formats
JPEG (best, better, good)
Recorded Resolution
12M (4000 x 3000)
10M (3648 x 2736)
7M (3072 x 2304)
5M (2592 x 1944)
3M (2048 x 1536)
1024 (1024 x 768)
VGA (640 x 480)
Video Recording
AVI (DivX with MPG-4) with Audio
VGA (640 x 480 @ 30 fps)
QVGA (320 x 240 @ 30 fps)
Clip length limited only by available memory
Audio Recording
WAV (PCM), monaural
Optics
Lens Type
smc Pentax Zoom Lens (7 elements in 5 groups with 2 dual aspheric lenses & 1 single aspheric lens)
Optical Zoom
3x (with up to 17.9x Intelligent Zoom)
Lens Focal Length
7.9 - 23.7mm (37 - 111mm equivalent)
Digital Zoom
6x
Minimum Focus Distance
2.4" (6.1 cm)
Maximum Aperture
f/2.8-5.4
Optical Image Stabilization
Yes (sensor shift shake reduction)
Accessory Lens/Filter Mount
No
Focus Control
Focus Type
TTL Contrast Detection Auto Focus with AF assist lamp
Focus Modes
5 point AF, Spot AF, Tracking AF, Face Recognition AF, Manual focus, Macro Focus, Focus Lock
Focus Range
Normal: 13.8" (35cm) - infinity
Macro: 4.7" (11.9cm) - 15.8" (40cm)
Super macro: 2.4" (6.1cm) - 5.9" (15cm)
Exposure Control
Sensitivity
Auto ISO (50-800)
Selectable ISO (50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600)
Digital SR mode (ISO 3200 @ 5MP)
Shutter Type
Programmed AE electronic lens shutter with CCD electronic shutter
Shutter Speed
4 - 1/2000 seconds
Aperture Range
f/2.8-5.4 (max)
Exposure Metering
TTL AE (Multi-segment, Center weighted, Spot)
Exposure Modes
Green simplified mode, Auto Picture, Program, Shutter Priority, Manual, Natural Skin Tone, Half-length Portrait (3MP), Exposure compensation (±2 EV in 1/3 EV steps)
White Balance Modes
Auto, Daylight, Shade, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Manual
Scene Modes
Night Scene, Landscape, Portrait), Landscape, Flower, Portrait, Kids, Digital SR (5MP), Surf & Snow, Sport, Pet, Text, Food, Frame Composite (3MP), Dynamic Range Adjustment, Face recognition, Movie, Voice Recording
Flash
Built-in Flash
Series-control Auto Flash (on, off, auto, redeye, soft flash)
Effective Flash Range
Up to 23' @ auto ISO
External Flash Connection
No
External Flash Control
Not Applicable
Performance
Start-Up Time
1.8 seconds
Shutter Lag
0.005 seconds
Time Between Shots
0.7 seconds
Burst Capability
1.3 fps continuous
Self Timer
10 seconds or 2 seconds
Interval Recording
No
Date & Time Stamp
Yes
Memory & Power
Built-in Memory
21MB
Compatible Memory Cards
Secure Digital (SD/SDHC) Card
Recording Capacity
Includes 21MB Built-in Memory

Still Image Capacity

Best Better Good
12M 4 5 8
10M 4 7 9
7M 7 10 14
5M 9 14 19
3M 14 21 29
1024 38 54 76
VGA 69 100 139

Video Capacity

Video Mode Record Time
VGA 57 seconds (Best)
70 seconds (Better)
85 seconds (Good)
QVGA 218 seconds (Best)
271 seconds (Better)
313 seconds (Good)

all values are approximated

Battery Type
D-LI8 Rechargeable Lithium ion Battery
Power Adapter
AC Power Adapter (optional)
Input/Output
Computer Interface
USB 2.0 hi-speed
Direct Print Capable
PictBridge
Remote Control
IR Remote (optional)
Video Output
NTSC & PAL
Web-Cam Capable
No
System & Software Requirements
Windows System
  • Pentium II Processor or later
  • Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista
  • 256MB RAM (512MB recommended)
  • 100MB available Hard Disk space (1GB Recommended)
  • Available USB Port
  • CD-ROM Drive
  • Color Monitor (16-bit)
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later

Macintosh System

  • PowerPC 266 MHz or higher
  • Mac OS 9.2, OS X (10.1.2 or later)
  • 8MB available RAM (minimum)
  • 6MB available Hard Disk space (minimum)
  • CD-ROM Drive
  • Color Monitor (16-bit)
  • QuickTime 6.0 or later
Display
Viewfinder
No
LCD Display
2.5" TFT color LCD (232,000 pixels) with LCD Bright Mode
Language Options
English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Turkish, Russian, Thai, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese
Playback Options
one shot, index (9 thumbnails), magnification, movie playback, sound playback, histogram, select/delete, calendar, slideshow, resize, trimming, image/sound copy, image rotation, color filter, digital filter, brightness filter, movie edit, redeye edit, voice memo, protect, DPOF, startup screen, frame composite, Magnification (up to 8x, scrollable), Digital Filter Effects (13 color filters, 5 digital filters, brightness filter), Movie edit (save as still image, divide movies, extract movies)
Physical
Dimensions
2.2 x 3.6 x 0.9" (56 x 92 x 23mm)
Weight
4.6oz (131g) without battery

Pentax A40 Reviews

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