Camera Reviews

One of the best reasons to consider a megazoom is the fact that you get a big zoom range in a small package, so you don’t have to carry around huge SLR lenses and, more importantly, you don’t have to pay the huge prices for those SLR lenses. Fujifilm’s FinePix S8000fd sports an 18x optical zoom lens that covers a 35mm-equivalent range of 27mm-to-486mm with a maximum aperture range of f/2.8-to-f/4.5. Given that a lot of megazooms start around a not-so-wide 36mm with their zooms, this camera’s lens should make group portraits or big landscapes easier to frame. Read full Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd Review »

With the no-frills Optio S10, Pentax bucks the trend of loading up point-and-shoot cameras with neat-sounding but dubiously useful features–OK, so I’m not a big face-detection fan–and sticking true to its photographic roots by including some very useful features that we wish we’d see more often. Read full Pentax Optio S10 Camera Review »

Sometimes you just don’t want to agonize over whether you should choose the soup or the salad, the Coke or the Pepsi, the PC or the Mac. Olympus realizes just how hard choices can be, which is why it’s made the FE series of digital cameras. They’re simple, direct, and require almost no choices besides when to press the shutter button. The Olympus FE-250 is one such camera. Read full Olympus FE-250 Camera Review »

Last year marked the 10th anniversary of Canon’s Elph cameras. The line started with a film camera, though the company’s SD line of digital compacts still carries the Digital Elph moniker. Despite its four-digit number, Canon positions the PowerShot SD1000 as a replacement for last year’s SD600, which also puts it below the new SD750 in the company’s line. Resolution has been bumped up to 7.1 megapixels from the SD600’s 6MP, but despite an almost identical controls layout (though different cosmetic design), Canon made a few changes on the inside. Read full Canon PowerShot SD1000 Camera Review »

There aren’t many waterproof compact cameras out there, let alone one made to survive drops of up to 5 feet. Olympus designed its 7.1-megapixel Stylus 770SW to do just that, providing real competition for Pentax’s waterproof Optio W30. By its tough nature alone, this Olympus makes an ideal choice if you routinely shoot in adverse conditions. I took it skiing with me as part of this review, and it fared better than I did on a couple of falls. In fact, despite three days of chilly temperatures and a lot of bumps, the Stylus 770SW still came out shooting. Read full Olympus Stylus 770SW Camera Review »