by Peter Cohen, MacCentral  

Pentax has announced plans to introduce several new cameras at an upcoming event called Pepcom in New York City, scheduled for September 20, 2004. While Pentax is keeping some specifications and pricing under wraps for now, it offered some details about the new products ahead of the event.

The *ist DS is a new compact, lightweight digital Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera that measures 4.9 x 3.6 x 2.6 inches and weighs 18 ounces and takes a 6.1 megapixel image. It features a 2.0-inch color LCD display, 11-point auto focus, shutter speed of up to 1/4000th second, support for SD memory cards, and the ability to record up to 8 images consecutively at about 2.8 frames per second. It will ship in November. Pentax is also releasing in November a third lens for its line of digital SLR cameras, including the new *ist DS -- the Pentax-DA Zoom 18-55. The lens provides an angle of view equivalent to a 27.5mm-84mm lens in the 35mm format.

Coming in October is the OptioMX4 -- a 4-megapixel camera point-and-shoot model that can capture both movies and still images. It uses a 10x optical zoom and can accept an optional wide-angle conversion lens. It records 640x480 pixel movies in MPEG-4 format -- up to two hours at a time -- and features a palm-grip to minimize hand shake and reduce fatigue. Also planned for an October release is the Optio SV, a 5.0-megapixel digital camera with 5x optical zoom and a compact aluminum body design that measures 3.0 x 1.8 x 0.9 inches. It sports a zoom lens system similar to Pentax's Optio S compact model and features a mode selection dial and a Picture mode that lets users select icons on the LCD monitor to match the scene at hand.