Pentax X70: Champion of Superzoom Day

Today appears to be not just Square Root Day, but also Superzoom Day over at the PMA camera show in Las Vegas. First, the 10x Kodak EasyShare Z915 was announced, then the 20x Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1, and now they've all been trumped by the 24x zoom of the Pentax X70.

It's a 12-megapixel model with optical image stabilisation, which moves the sensor to compensate for vibration from shaky hands. It's the widest angle lens of today's crop of superzooms, at 26mm -- 35mm equivalent -- and the longest, at 624mm.

The camera's face detection fixes focus and exposure on up to 32 faces, with an auto-tracking autofocus feature that locks onto a subject and tracks them as they move around the frame. You'll be able to capture up to 11 images per second in a burst of up to 21 shots.

The X70 shoots high-definition 720p video at 15 frames per second, with the option to dial it down to 848x480, VGA and QVGA resolutions at 30fps. Photos can be captured in the 4:3 format, 3:2, 16:9 or square 1:1. And, as if these numbers weren't impressive enough, the X70 also includes no less than 90 image frames to jazz up your pictures.

Click through our images for more details on the X70, including availability and pricing.