outdoor scene

The image left was taken with the Pentax Optio Z10 at 7mm f7.1 and with a sensitivity of 64 ISO; the original JPEG measured 3.04MB. The crops are taken from the upper left, center, lower right and lower left portions of the originals and presented here at 100%.

Judging from the crops below, the Pentax Optio Z10 suffers from coloured fringing in high contrast areas, especially towards the edges of the frame. You can see evidence of this in all the crops below apart from the second crop taken from the centre of the image – and if you visit our Pentax Z10 Sample Images page, you’ll see more examples of this effect.

But overall, the Pentax Z10 delivers a more pleasing and better-corrected image than the Olympus Stylus 790 SW shown alongside. The Olympus may not exhibit any noticeable fringing, but suffers from softness which reduces the ultimate detail – this is particularly apparent as you approach the edges of the frame, such as the crop showing the trees around the tennis courts. Now let’s check how the Z10 performs in our studio resolution tests.