Pentax Optio WG-1

Pentax has updated its waterproof camera just in time for summer 2011. The W90 has therefore stepped aside to make way for the WG-1—a more stylish camera with a neat, pinched waistline, but which isn't really all that different from its predecessor. It has the same 28-140 mm zoom lens, the same screen and still uses a CCD sensor, even if the resolution has been upped to 14 Megapixels.

Handling

The WG-1 is an unusual-looking camera, with its elongated body (making room for the 16:9-format screen) and more than a passing resemblance to a chunky Casio G-Shock watch. The plastic and rubber casing is actually quite nice though, and even if its shape and design can sometimes feel a little fussy and unnecessarily complicated (on the upper edge for example) that doesn't affect the handling. In fact, your index finger will rest nicely in the dip on the upper edge of the camera.


Although the camera's overall design may look to have changed a lot, the controls and their layout are exactly the same as in the W90. That's a bit of a shame, as we would have liked to see a video record button replace the much less useful smile-detection button. You can assign direct access to the video mode to the green button, but a separate record button would still be quicker and easier, especially since you lose instant access to the Quick Menu if you reassign the green button's function.

Unfortunately, the screen is exactly the same as in the W90 too. You'll either love or hate the 16:9 aspect ratio which, for example, means the icons will appear next to (rather than on top of) a photo when you're lining up a shot. However, its definition is lagging behind current market standards and the viewing angles are quite simply ridiculous. We know we've said this before but, for taking action-shots of your friends while climbing, abseiling, surfing or skiing, you can't always make sure you're perfectly in line with the camera screen. That's why decent viewing angles are all the more important in supposedly all-terrain cameras. Plus, since the gamma is way too low (light greys soon become white) and colour fidelity is way off the mark, you shouldn't trust the WG-1 screen when viewing back photos and choosing which ones to delete.

The interface is clear and pleasant to use. The green button gives fast access to all the main picture settings (ISO, white balance, exposure etc.) and the flash and macro modes can be accessed via the four-way arrows. Alternatively, you can assign the function of your choice to the green button.

This camera comes with a chunky strap with a carabiner clip on the end of it. It's ideal for a rough, tough outdoorsy kind of camera, and can be easily clipped to a belt hook (see photo) or a bag strap. It's more practical than the traditional wrist straps and the wide WG-1 strap helps you keep a good grip on the camera.

Responsiveness

The bad news is that the WG-1 is slower than the W90, taking over two seconds to switch on and take its first photo. It's faster than most superzoom compacts but, at the same time, the WG-1 doesn't have a monster lens that takes time to deploy. It's even more inexplicable since the previous model was actually quite fast.

Otherwise, the camera does a decent job, with an autofocus that works in under a second in all conditions and taking less than two seconds to save a picture. The autofocus can be a little inconsistent though. At the maximum zoom setting in particular, we found it sometimes got stuck for half a second and sometimes hesitated for up to a second. On occasions, it even refused to focus at all.

Picture Quality

Since the WG-1 is very similar to the W90, we were expecting to get fairly similar results. After all, increasing the resolution to 14 Megapixels isn't likely to have a huge impact.



It's strange to see that while some manufacturers using BSI CMOS sensors only include ISO settings up to 1600 ISO, Pentax insists on forcing its CCD up to 6400 ISO. From 400 ISO, a heavy smoothing effect gets rid of grainy noise but also manages to completely wipe out finer detail, to the extent that the loss in sharpness is noticeable on a 4" x 6" print (10 x 15 cm). This effect gets more and more pronounced as the ISO setting increases. The WG-1 is therefore one of the 14-Megapixel CCD compacts that takes pictures with the least digital noise ... just don't expect any level of detail in your shots from 400 ISO upwards.

The lens isn't the best we've ever seen. It's fine at wide-angle settings, even if the corners of the shot won't look sharp on an 8" x 10" (20 x 27 cm) print. At telephoto settings the whole image looks hazy and the edges actually just look blurred, even on fairly small prints.

The WG-1 doesn't do a great job of handling colours under warm or mixed lighting conditions. In the 25 photos we took for our Barbie test, we got three shots with accurate colours (right), and twenty or so other shots that look far too yellow, making Barbie's skin look almost fluorescent (left). The exposure is, however, consistent, in that all the images are overexposed. That's because the WG-1 gets caught out by the black test lab walls in spite of its face recognition function.


The lack of stabilisation and the relatively slow lens are problematic too. Without the flash, the WG-1 had to shoot in 1/25 of a second, pushing up to 1600 ISO to help keep the Barbie shot free from any blurring caused by camera shake. As a result, the smoothing wipes out detail from the doll's eyes, hair and nose.

While we're at it, we might as well add that climbers and other outdoor types—who this product is first and foremost aimed at—will note that when you're hanging off a rock with one hand, it can be quite difficult to hold a camera steady. All-terrain compacts are therefore in even greater need of an effective stabilisation system than regular compacts. Manufacturers take note!

Video

Videos are recorded in Mjpeg format! It's incredibly surprising to see such an antiquated format used in a camera that sells for almost £250, while formats like Mpeg-4 are pretty much standard in mid-range cameras these days.

The image is over contrasted and fuzzy noise is visible in darker areas. The mono sound isn't up to much and you can't use the optical zoom.

Finally, we noticed that the WG-1 only uses part of its sensor in video mode, making for a much tighter field of view. The horizontal angle of view drops from 62° (equivalent to 28 mm) in photo mode to 52° in video mode. This is further accentuated by the 16:9 aspect ratio, making the 'wide angle' in video mode equivalent to 38 mm!