24x super telephoto, beautiful scenery and Pentax X70 evaluation.

Super telephoto model has gradually become a hot spot in the consumer digital camera market in recent two years. At one time, only brands such as Olympus, Fuji and Panasonic would update related products from time to time. Now the mainstream Canon and Nikon have joined this camp, and even Pentax has launched the X70 with a 24x zoom lens. The camp suddenly became lively.

Pentax X70 (Click here for a larger image.

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The 24x zoom lens used by the Pentax X70 has an equivalent wide-angle focal length of 26mm and a telephoto length of 624 mm From this configuration, it is almost enough to deal with various subjects from scenery to long-distance close-ups.

Pentax X70 wide-angle shooting range

The shooting range of Pentax X70 telephoto end in the same camera (red box in the above picture).

However, as a consumer camera, the core imaging device of X70 is still limited to the CCD size of 1/2.33 inches. Whether12 million effective pixels can exert strong expressive force will be discussed in the following content.

"Product advantages:

1, with rich functions.

2. The control efficiency is high.

3. The colors are bright and vivid.

"Product disadvantages:

1, random battery capacity is small.

2. The imaging quality of telephoto end is poor.

In addition to12 million static effective pixels, X70 also supports audio and video shooting with the highest resolution of 1280╳720 pixels, which is closely related to the current high-definition trend of digital cameras. The 24x zoom lens also has the maximum aperture of f/2.8, the telephoto end can still maintain f/5, and the shutter speed can reach 1/4000 seconds at the highest, which makes X70 the key model in this consumer model, suitable for some manual shooting control. Detailed technical specifications of X70 can be found on the last page of this article.

Pentax X70 (Click here for a larger image.

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Compared with many telephoto models, X70 looks similar. The black body of the large lens presents a professional tendency, and the design of the handle and other places brings a comfortable and accurate sense of control. The design of control interfaces such as green buttons (custom shortcut function keys) and parameter dial wheel on the back of the fuselage is close to that of Pentax SLR camera, which is more efficient to use.

Pentax X70 (Click here for a larger image.

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The fuselage interface of Pentax X70 (click here to view the larger image

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However, considering the portability of consumer cameras, the overall size of X70 is still controlled at a very small level, and the operation interface may still be a little crowded compared with SLR cameras.

Pentax X70 (Click here for a larger image.

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Pentax X70 (Click here for a larger image.

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In addition to the 2.7-inch, 230,000-point LCD screen, the Pentax X70 also provides an electronic viewfinder. Among them, the liquid crystal display adopts antireflection film, which improves the observation effect under strong light to a certain extent and has a larger viewing angle. The resolution of electric viewfinder (EVF) is low, so the fine picture is not suitable for manual focusing and other operations, but it can be used for composition monitoring in extremely strong light environment.

The fuselage interface of Pentax X70 (click here to view the larger image

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In order to improve the focusing performance, X70 also provides a focusing auxiliary light. You can manually turn on the built-in flash when necessary. Pentax X70 has few fuselage interfaces. Besides the conventional audio/video output and USB data interface, it also provides a DC power socket, but it does not provide the popular HDMI interface.

Although the lens has a large volume and a wide zoom range, the X70' s startup response speed is actually not slow, and it only takes 1.5 seconds to shoot after pressing the shutter button. However, the autofocus response speed of X70 is slow. When shooting with a wide-angle end, the total time lag between autofocus and shutter is about 1.2 seconds, which is inconvenient to capture. If the lens state is set to the telephoto end, the lens volume will increase obviously and the autofocus response speed will slow down. According to the different subjects, the response speed of the telephoto end is different, but it usually takes about 2 seconds to complete an autofocus.

Long shot of Pentax X70 (click here to view larger image

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Pentax X70' s random lithium-ion battery (click here to view larger image

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Generally, the larger the lens size, the higher the power consumption when focusing and zooming, so this telephoto model often consumes more power than ordinary models. This kind of camera generally adopts AA battery design, so the battery capacity is relatively larger. Therefore, the lithium-ion battery with a capacity of about 880mAh provided by Pentax X70 is very insufficient. When taking ordinary photos with flash and performing some common zooming and playback operations, the fully charged X70 can only support less than 200 shots. This is X70' s most regrettable place.

As mentioned above, the X70' s control interface design is close to Pentax SLR camera, and the parameter dial and special exposure compensation key facilitate manual exposure control. The complete manual exposure mode also provides space for photography learning. On the other hand, automatic image mode and multi-scene shooting mode provide convenience for the simplest shooting. The optical anti-shake function improves the picture stability of telephoto shooting.

Pentax X70' s shooting mode dial (click here to view larger image

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X70 supports facial recognition.

In terms of special functions, in addition to face recognition and smiling face shutter function, X70 also supports high-speed continuous shooting, which can take 1 1 photos per second, with a maximum of 5 million pixels, which is very suitable for recording sports themes. The blink detection function further enhances the usability and interest of portrait shooting.

X70 supports high-speed continuous shooting.

Because the green button provides optional functions, the setting mode of X70 system becomes more flexible, and common parameters such as sensitivity and white balance can be set quickly. In addition, through the menu, you can choose the image tone of X70, or adjust the clarity, saturation and contrast of the image to make the image more expressive.

X70 shooting menu

After a period of use and a large number of proofs, we found that X70, like the previous Pentax camera, is very pure and rich in blue, which is very suitable for shooting landscape themes. In addition, X70 also provides a wide-angle option of 16:9, which is very suitable for shooting scenery with a wide-angle lens. The X70 shooting picture feels fresh and bright as a whole. Here are some test samples of X70:

In terms of telephoto shooting performance, X70' s performance will decline, mainly due to the obvious lens dispersion and the sharp decline of the picture. In addition, when the sensitivity is improved, the noise of the picture will also affect the detail performance, so the picture details of long-distance close-up photos are not so natural and sharp. However, this is said at the level of 6.5438+0.2 million pixels. Generally, when you look at photos on the monitor or print small-sized photos, you won't feel obvious. In addition, when shooting a large dynamic range scene, the small tolerance of this small-size image sensor will be obvious, and the picture contrast is often extremely high. Here are some test samples of X70:

"IT 168 assessment center view:

No matter from the hardware configuration, function or fuselage design, Pentax X70 is a model suitable for a variety of needs. For those novice photographers, X70' s complete manual function and efficient control interface are worth pondering and developing, and a wide range of shutter speed can be used to show rich effects. For ordinary travel shooting, the X70 wide-angle zoom lens is very suitable for covering beautiful scenery or close-ups of people. Convenient automatic mode provides convenience for quick shooting.

Pentax X70 (Click here for a larger image.

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From the performance point of view, except that the random battery capacity is obviously small for this model, the X70' s performance in affecting the speed and imaging quality is remarkable, especially the bright and bright color style is very pleasing. However, the sharpness of telephoto end is obviously reduced, and the image noise is more obvious at high sensitivity, which is still the bottleneck of this large zoom ratio lens and small format image sensor.

"Disclaimer: The evaluation content of this article is based on the sample provided by Pentax Company (product number: 430060 1). Our evaluation conclusion is only responsible for the individual who sent the sample, and there is no guarantee that this individual can represent the overall level of the commercially available products.