Pentax announces Optio WP waterproof camera at CES

5 January 2005 16:20 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Pentax has announced a new waterproof camera called the OptioWP at CES in Las Vegas.

The camera, which is only 22mm thick sports a 2.0-inch LCD monitor, a 3X optical zoom lens and 5.0 megapixels.

The waterproof element of the camera means it can stay in water up to 30 minutes at a depth of up to 1.5m making it ideal for water sports but not diving.

The 3x optical zoom lens will give the equivalent of 38-114mm lens in 35mm format and there is also a 4X digital zoom, making a maximum zooming power of 12X possible whenever desired.

For newcomers Pentax has fitted the camera with a green mode.
Green mode fixes all camera settings to a standard combination with a single press of the Green button (with the exception of the zoom setting). Failing that, the camera has 15 scene modes as well.

Other features include a 0.6 second start time, macro mode of 1cm, SD compability and 10.5Mb of memory built in.

The camera will be available in the UK in April, pricing though as yet to be set.