I bought the Pentax Optio M50 in the form of gift. I selected this model for the following reasons:

* It's always small and compact enough to have always in hand
* It is really quite stylish (for a young girl). We've got it in Pink to settle for her pink iPod.
* I want a camera that is at least 8MP which happens to be plenty for use at home (Relating to advanced digital SLRs with 8MP and so they take pro quality images)
* The zoom ratio (5x) was as good as those found on other cameras in it's class (usually 3x)
* I'm keen the feature that automatically detects and exposes for faces (although "Auto Smile" feature definitely seems to be a hit or miss feature thus i don't suggest deploying it)
* It's just a great value for that price

A couple of things to learn though:

* There is not any optical viewer, you need to utilize the rear screen to compose the actual
* The "shake reduction" feature will not be true electronic image stabilization, which you'll find or higher end cameras. Instead it raises the sensitivity within the light sensing chip in low light allowing conditions higher shutter speed all at once delivering less detail while in the resulting photo. Nice feature, however it is not as nice as they are which reduces or compensates for actual trembling camera electronically.

Over human body . is an excellent buy. Just a few long ago a camera in this way may have cost at least twice all the. Considering it's features this is a very good value and Pentax is actually a name that you can trust.