Pentax IQzoom 200
The Pentax IQZoom 200 thankfully marks the upper limits of the super zoom point and shoots and possibly the depths of how bad a lens can be. Everything else about the camera is run of the mill for the time but the lens is a 48-200mm f5.1 – f13 abomination with 11 elements. Coupled with a shutter only capable of a 1/400 of a second minimum shutter speed your almost guaranteed to have blurry images. Thankfully that might hide some of the chromatic aberration which look like a 3D anaglyph they’re so bad. Even in good light with 400 ISO film at f13 it might only select a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second which is far too slow for hand holding such a light 200mm lens without a lot of care. Its just an ill conceived idea and little wonder by the time digital cameras became mainstream people were ready for an alternative. And 48mm isn’t very wide which leaves the usefulness of the entire camera in question. Sure if your at the beach on a bright day and you want to take a fuzzy picture of a sandcastle in the distance this might be the camera for you. Having now run a roll of film through it the question is now what do I do with the camera. It does provide a couple nice features like multi exposure which you can see in the flag picture and spot focus. Even taking that into consideration I cant think of a situation where I’m going to think ‘Hey I should really grab that IQzoom 200 monstrosity’.
One thing about one camera: The Pentax IQ Zoom 200 cost $349 US in 1999 which was enough money to get you an entry level SLR with a kit lens. At the same time saving you from the embarrassment of owning this camera.
