Pentax Optio V20 compact camera

When it came to performance, the Optio V20 is a bit of a mixed bag. Let’s start with the good news. Picture quality was crisp and colour reproduction was good. We think most people would be happy with the results they got from this camera, whether shooting in bright light or low-light conditions. That said, picture noise begins to creep in at around ISO 400.

The 5x optical zoom is good for closing in on distant subjects, although it’s disappointing at the wide angle setting. The macro mode lets you shoot within 10 centimetres/four inches away from a subject, although it takes a while for the Optio V20 to settle down when shooting close-up images.

The Optio V20’s offerings are not bad for a model at this price point

There’s even an auto macro mode that works when the camera is in auto mode and the zoom is at the wide angle setting. As soon as you come within 10cm of an object, the Optio V20 automatically switches to macro mode. The Panorama mode, which stitches up to three images together, worked well and while it was sometimes tricky to align images correctly, the Optio V20 did a good job in combining images in-camera.

The Optio V20 boasts a Face Recognition Auto Focus system and Auto Exposure system. The system was fast and accurate and the automatic exposure system helped produce reasonable skin tone.