Both my sister and niece have birthdays close to one another, and they are near Christmas and Chanukah. I was thinking about getting them a little digicam - mostly so they can send me pictures. Here's what I think would be ideal, in no particular order:
Good, accurate autofocus without them having to fiddle much, if at all, with various controls; Enough pixels for 5x7 sized prints of reasonable quality; Adjustable flash exposure (a few levels would be fine); Zoom lens with something like a 28~90 or 35~105 or so range; Reasonably fast lens (not one of those 5.6 to 9.0 types); Able to make three or so levels of JPEG adjustment; Non proprietary battery; Possibly a connector so they can see pics on TV screen, maybe a slide show feature; Simple, easy to understand controls, easy to understand manual; Not so big that they won't carry it with them, not so small that it's a PITA to use; Anything else that non techie folks might find useful in a digi cam .... oh, yes, easy to load to a computer maybe with direct camera connection; No need to load much, if any, software to make the camera useful for them to send me email pics Doesn't have to be a Pentax, but it would be nice since I could get help here if need be. I don't know anything about the Optios or other Pentax digicam models. Shel
