Pixiq

I spend so much of my time trying to be discreet with my camera – whether it is because I’m doing street photography or just because I don’t want to draw attention to highly portable and not-exactly-cheap equipment – that the idea of a camera that’s a fashion accessory makes me a bit light-headed. But I can see how co-ordinating your camera with your outfit or turning it into a fashion statement of its own might appeal. And Pentax is pushing this a long way with its Optio RS1500.

The Optio RS1000, released in September last year, let you customise its cover, but you had to unscrew the front to do so. With the RS1500, all you have to do to replace your sky blue pink with lime green spotty design with a zebra print is clip it in place. And you can change the lens rings, too.

Look! With orange lens ring!

The camera spec of the RS1500 seems pretty similar to the RS1000: 4x wide-angle zoom lens (28-112mm 35mm equivalent); 720p HD video (and shake reduction); 14mp sensor; auto picture mode with 15 different possibilities; and nine filters, you know, toy camera, and sepia, and retro options.

It’s got face priority, smile detection, and natural skin modes, too. Quite why it needs a natural skin mode, I’m not sure. I’ve yet to encounter a camera that makes us all look like lizards by default. But anyway.

Or you can make it look vintage

Just as on the RS1000, there’s a 16 frame-per-second burst mode (at 640 x 480 pixels); digital blur removal; auto-tracking to keep fast moving small children in focus; a panorama mode that stitches together… wait for it… three images; and a green mode that does just about everything bar depress the shutter release button.

But you know, its price isn’t that similar to the RS1000. At around £90, the new RS1500 is about £30 cheaper than its predecessor was when it was released.

You know, it’s just occurred to me that this could be good for discreet photography: you can camouflage it.

Pentax Optio RS1500; more details from Pentax.