Digital Photography For Everyone

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PC Mag have thrown up a round-up of 21 digital cameras! Here's a snip.

For this story, we evaluate cameras in three popular categories: shirt-pocket shooters, midrange models, and professional models. The 21 cameras we test have much in common. All except the Olympus E-1 have a built-in flash, only the Canon PowerShot SD10 Digital Elph doesn't come with or accommodate a zoom lens, and all but the Fujifilm FinePix S7000 Zoom and the HP Photosmart 945 ship with rechargeable batteries. All the cameras have autofocus, macro settings, exposure compensation, selectable ISO equivalencies, and automatic white balance.

The differences, however, are significant. Shirt-pocket shooters are small, stylish, and sophisticated. They are go-anywhere, always-ready cameras. But packing all that technology into such a small design, they're harder to handle, especially for people with poor eyesight or arthritic hands. And most models come with fewer features and have slower performance, reduced battery life, and slightly inferior image quality.

There are two types of midrange models: One is designed for point-and-shoot use, for those who rarely stray from fully automatic mode and value simplicity over features. The other targets enthusiastic amateur photographers who want total control over f-stops and shutter speeds. This type of shooter also demands professional features like bracketing (taking a rapid sequence at different exposures or white balance settings), a hot shoe for attaching an external strobe, and the ability to save uncompressed RAW or TIFF images.

Digital Photography For Everyone