Rating: 
Summary: Shutter / Focus Problem
Review: I bought the camera about a year ago. Had several problems with it. It's difficult to focus. Then the white balance, difficult to set. Then finally the worst, the shutter button stopped responding! This made my cammera completely useless! I am totally disappointed with the performance. Not a good investment.
Rating: 
Summary: AWESOME camera...good price!
Review: I get compliments about my pictures all the time! SO many people ask me what kind of camera I have...I tell them..and they BUY this camera!!
Rating: 
Summary: Small size Big Promise Some Sad Compromises
Review: I have one of these super little digitals in my pocket - smaller than my wallet, it's truly convenient for scenic shots. Its 3 X optical zoom is almost adequate, and helped by its 2X digital zoom. I agree with virtually all the pro's listed by the very enthusiastic fellow reviewers, but find the con's frustrating. These are (imho):
1. Low light focussing fails very often - the camera has no illuminating mechanism for autofocus - and allows a picture to be taken even if it has failed to find focus. Often it seems to guess - and will focus on distance once, then close, then distance again.... showing its little green "focus-OK" LED none-the-less. The focus-free setting is a partial work-around.
2. There is some barrel distortion on the wide setting - which at the equivalent of 38mm lens on a 35 mm camera - should really not yet occur. It also gets somewhat fuzzy around the edges at this setting. Group pictures focus at the centre - but people at the edges are fuzzy. This could be a depth of field problem, as the camera has only two aperture settings. This may improve significantly in the future as CCD's reduce in size, or Pentax my need to redevelop this 7 element lens with an aspherical lense system.
3. The camera emphasizes white, but I'm trying different saturation settings now.
4. The camera is not usually sold with the remote control - and the one I bought - which officially is the required one for the camera - lacks the remote controlled zoom described in the handbook. Seems there's a difference between intention and implementation at Pentax in this regard.
5. The flash ranges about 2m/6ft - much too short for a group picture in a room - compound this with the faults 1 and 2, and even some 1.3 megapixel cameras do better (less detail hides some of the errors.).
6. The camera has ISO sensitivities of 100 and 200. Many competing cameras have 400 also, which may have helped the flash range.
7. The LCD is rather small - necessarily a compromise of size - but allows one to zoom after the picture is taken - so if you want to check the quality of a picture you have taken - this is OK.
8.I soon bought a second (special) lithium battery, and the short battery life (about 20 pics at maximal quality, full resolution with flash and lcd or 32Mb - half the memory I've installed) is no longer a problem.
Lastly, it would be useful if the camera could be used as a webcam or controlled from a computer.., but cannot, as yet.Personally, I am a little disappointed at the compromises made by Pentax - I was expecting more when I bought this little device. Its key advantage is small size, its light weight, the zoom, and its friendly and understandable menus that allow one to actually use its tremendous versatility.
The firmware version in my camera is V1.01. I bought the camera in October 2001.
I suggest you try this out with a few of the competing small cameras (and the 430) in different conditions, they all make compromises and this may be the camera you want. Pentax will probably improve this camera rapidly - they are so close to having a true winner.
Rating:
Summary: Example of Pentax's Poor Service
Review: I purchased this camera New just prior to my wife and I getting married in December. It came with all the valid warrantees and receipts. Slowly, over the course of our honeymoon the it was harder to get the shutter release button to trigger a photo. Additionally the MENU button on the back would stay depressed for a while after a period of non-use. Regardless, we treated the new camera as if it was an eggshell, figuring that we would bring it back and have it repaired under warrantee. We turned it in for repair...Nearly a month later we were finally contacted and told that the camera repair would cost over [$]because it had internal damage! It seems that a drop or similar shock ad resulted in mounting brackets inside breaking (Strange, because there was nothing wrong with the LCD screen when we turned it in). Additionally, indicated other damage existed. Where did this other damage come from? Based on my experience with this company, I will no longer buy product from them, and I suggestthat you do the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Compact and Easy to use
Review: I was looking for a good point and shooter. I'd spent a while looking around at what was available and ended up buying a 330 for my company in order to see if it was good enough for me. In the end I bought it's sibling the 430. It's basically the same camera except a 4M pixel ccd instead of 3.3M. The menus and set up are all superbly easy to use. The display is sharp although there is as the review before me states some issues with macro focusing. The movies lack sound which would be nice. Battery life with flash and display is short but most digicams seem to suffer from this complaint and turning the display off helps a great deal. If you want a point and shoot that provides a wide range of options and also manual control for everything but don't want to sacrifice picture quality then buy one of these. I'm very happy with mine. Pentax might not have been first with a compact digi cam but they are top of the heap now.
Rating:
Summary: Great image quality and many features in a mini package
Review: The Pentax is my 3rd digital camera and it is the best in terms of size, features and image quality. I had a Canon Powershot A5 (.9 MPixel) and a Canon Powershot S10 (2.1 MPixels). Both were good cameras in their class but the Pentax Optio 330 has done a significant step forward. I was looking for a smaller Camera which I could take always with me and it should have 3 million pixels resolution and if possibel a 3x optical zoom lens. The Pentax fullfilled this wishlist and the 800 pictures which I have taken so far showed impressively a significantly improved image quality over my previous cameras beyond its obvious resolution advantage. Pro:
- Great color management, sharpness, large contrast - overall - very realistic images
- Large resolution 3 MPixels
- 3x optical Zoom 37-111 mm which produces very good and sharp images
- Rechargable Lithium battery which lasts through the day
- compact battery charger (100-240V)
- wealth of information about exposure data on the LCD display
- Compactflash Memory Type 1 - important when coming from Canon
- auto and manual exposure mode with shutter speed range 15 sec to 1/2000
- many more features
Con:
- LCD display quality does no match up to image quality - not important but annoying and reason for 4 instead of 5 stars! Not good enough to use for the manual focusing mode as it does not allow to judge correctly in focus or out of focus
- no additional 'low power' display with basic information on number of exposures flash mode or makro
- makro mode only in wide postion of zoom - a sacrifice to the small form factor
All in all a great small camera for every day use and well worth the money
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed
Review: This is my second digital camera so I'm hardly an expert, but we like this camera. It is as small as my old Rollei and seems to deliver decent pictures, with the ability to control the settings, lighting, etc. We are happy with the overall quality and the price.
Is it perfect? No. First, it is not waterproof or waterresistant (I would not venture into a humid, cold, or dusty environment). Second, it does feel a bit fragile, although we haven't tested this out. Finally, the battery is unique to this camera so you should be aware that you can't just go out and buy a replacement battery (you can buy a charger but fuggedabout long hikes or trips unless you are sparing with your electrons and you buy a spare). In summary, we think this small, inexpensive, lightweight camera does what it is intended to do and we are delighted with the quality/weight ratio. Just be aware of its limitations.
Rating:
Summary: It fulfills its purpose well
Review: This is my second digital camera so I'm hardly an expert, but we like this camera. It is as small as my old Rollei and seems to deliver decent pictures, with the ability to control the settings, lighting, etc. We are happy with the overall quality and the price.
Is it perfect? No. First, it is not waterproof or waterresistant (I would not venture into a humid, cold, or dusty environment). Second, it does feel a bit fragile, although we haven't tested this out. Finally, the battery is unique to this camera so you should be aware that you can't just go out and buy a replacement battery (you can buy a charger but fuggedabout long hikes or trips unless you are sparing with your electrons and you buy a spare). In summary, we think this small, inexpensive, lightweight camera does what it is intended to do and we are delighted with the quality/weight ratio. Just be aware of its limitations.
Rating:
Summary: Example of Pentax's Poor Service
Review: This little camera is slick. My wife was very hesitant about using a digital camera. However, it only took her about 2 minutes to be completely comfortable with the Pentax 330. This camera is SO easy to use. In addition, it has some nice advanced features such as black&white and sepia settings. The other advantage is its size -- it's absolutely tiny. It fits in a pocket very easily. Picture quality has been fantastic and I've printed several from a recent ski trip -- they look every bit as good as those taken from a film-based SLR. My suggestion would be to buy an extra battery and larger CF card to take more pictures. Other than that, buy it and enjoy. No more film for us!!!
Rating:
Summary: Easy, yet advanced
Review: This little camera is slick. My wife was very hesitant about using a digital camera. However, it only took her about 2 minutes to be completely comfortable with the Pentax 330. This camera is SO easy to use. In addition, it has some nice advanced features such as black&white and sepia settings. The other advantage is its size -- it's absolutely tiny. It fits in a pocket very easily. Picture quality has been fantastic and I've printed several from a recent ski trip -- they look every bit as good as those taken from a film-based SLR. My suggestion would be to buy an extra battery and larger CF card to take more pictures. Other than that, buy it and enjoy. No more film for us!!!
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