The Pentax Optio W10 was one cool camera, and an upgrade to it was quite expected. Today Pentax unveiled the Optio W20, which retains all the great characteristics of the W10, in addition to some new features. For starters, the Pentax W20 features a seven Megapixel image sensor and includes a blur reduction mode, something which wasn’t on the W10.

The Pentax Optio W20 is one of the few legitimate water-proof digital cameras and meets the JIS Class 8 waterproof standard, which makes it able to withstand 30 minutes of usage at a depth of 1.5 meter. Thus underwater photography is possible without any special housing or casing. The W20 boasts of a seven megapixel effective resolution and a large 2.5-inch LCD monitor with non-glare coating. The Optio W20 features a 3X optical zoom lens with a focal length of 6.3 to 18.9mm (equivalent to 38 to 114 mm for 35mm film). Because of long zooms, camera shake is evident and the new W20 to combat this problem includes a Blur Reduction mode.

The new Blur Reduction mode lets one take sharp images at faster shutter speeds and low light conditions and also adjusts the sensitivity to as high as ISO 1600 to match the brightness of the subject. Pentax promises a great Macro Mode on the W20 and the camera can be used as close as one centimeter away from a subject. Like all self respecting digital cameras, this one too has a decent video mode where moves can be captured at 30 fps (frames per second) at sizes up to 640 x 480 pixels. The Movie mode also has an anti-shake feature, which compensates for camera shakes and the Mermaid Movie mode, optimizes underwater video photography.

The latest addition in the Optio series also includes the Face Recognition AF & AE technology which automatically detects the position subject’s face anywhere in the photo frame and then decides the exposure accordingly. The camera has 25 shooting modes, 15 playback modes and an Image Recovery function which retrieves accidentally erased pictures. The W20 has an meager 21.9 MB of built-in memory and is PictBridge, DPOF, Exif Print, and PRINT Image Matching III compatible. No word on pricing or availability.

Via Dpreview