Pentax X70

The bigger your camera’s lens, the closer it is possible to get to your subject, even if it’s miles away.

The 24x zoom lens offered by Pentax’s new X70 camera makes it the biggest zoom compact in its price range and equivalent to a 26-624mm lens on an old 35mm film camera. It's therefore great at close-ups from distance as well as natural portrait shots.

If the £369 UK asking price seems a little on the high side – for a similar amount you can buy an entry-level digital SLR – but bear in mind that the equivalent focal range on a more professional camera would not only require a physically larger lens but also one that was much more expensive.

The Pentax X70 is a 12-megapixel camera with a 2.7in screen on the rear, with an overall design that apes some of the smaller digital SLRs, but the operation of which is as user-friendly as that of a compact.

Shooting modes – special settings for portraits, landscapes, night shooting and so on – can be selected with a twist of the large top-mounted dial, and include full manual control as well as high-definition movies. The camera felt solid but light thanks to being powered by a single rechargeable battery pack rather than AA batteries. It’s fast to power up and respond too, but battery life was poor, with just 170 images from a full charge.

Supporting the big lens is an anti-shake device that vibrates the camera’s sensor at high speed to cancel out any camera shake that would otherwise blur the image, a real possibility when shooting at maximum zoom or in poor light. For sports fans there’s the option to shoot at an impressive 11 frames per second, though with the trade off that the resolution more than halves to five megapixels.

In operation the zoom travelled smoothly and speedily through its range, meaning it was hard to frame zoomed shots exactly. Still, pictures were sharply focused and colourful, despite occasional softness at maximum zoom and purple fringing visible in brighter scenes.

It’s not perfect but Pentax’s X70 affords more creative possibilities than the standard snapper and is easy to use for anyone trading up from a pocket compact camera.