The Pentax Optio A40 is a 3x zoom digicam that features a 1/1.7″ sensor for improved low-light abilities. The CCD-shift image stabilization ensures stable pictures and the videos are recorded in DivX format allowing for smaller file sizes. Shutter-priority and manual exposure are there and so are Pentax’s traditional automatic modes. Optio A40 is Pentax’s first digital camera with 12.0 effective megapixels. In the Digital SR (Shake Reduction) mode, the camera automatically adjusts sensitivity, to as high as the ultrahigh sensitivity of ISO 3200 according to the brightness of the subject. In the Movie SR mode, it electronically reduces camera shakes exclusively during the shooting of movies. Face Recognition AF&AE, Natural Skin Tone mode, Half-length Portrait mode are some of the other features. The Dynamic Range Adjustment prevents white outs and black outs by correcting the tones for the highlighted areas or the shadowed areas of a subject with significant differences in contrast.

Pentax Optio A40 has a 2.5-inch (high resolution 232,000 pixels) LCD monitor. It captures movies at 30fps at sizes up to 640×480 pixels. The Movie playback is not supported on Macintosh operating system. The camera will be available from October 2007 for $299.95.
Other specs include:
– Users can freely choose “Shutter-Priority AE” mode and “Manual Exposure” mode, depending on the effect they are aiming to achieve
– An “Intelligent zoom” function enables images to be magnified shooting, while maintaining the image quality of optical zoom
– “Auto Picture” mode automatically determines the best settings for the shooting conditions
– Mode palette provide quick access of 18 shooting modes and 15 playback modes
– Approximately 21.0 MB of built-in-memory
– Compatible with SD memory cards and SDHC memory cards
– FotoNation’s red eye compensation function for flash shots
– Includes the ACDSee for PENTAX 3.0 image viewer/image management software that support Windows Vista
– Support PictBridge, DPOF functions, Exif Print, and PRINT Image Matching III

Via – Fareastgizmos