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Digital Imaging

Digital Camera ($500 and Over)

Olympus C-5050 Zoom ($799)

Top-drawer image quality, better-than-average battery life, plenty of high-end features, and an easy-to-use interface make Olympus's C-5050 Zoom a digital camera that's ready for serious shooters. The $799, 5-megapixel C-5050 earned some of the best image-quality scores we've seen on our tests, particularly for outdoor photos. And it lets you take plenty of them--its battery lasted for over 370 shots. The camera supports a wide variety of methods for storing captured photos, including XD-Picture Card (a 32MB card comes with the camera), SmartMedia, CompactFlash, and IBM Microdrive.

Olympus took a new approach with the controls on the C-5050. Many of the buttons bring up rotating menus with large, easily understood icons. As you spin a dial on the back of the camera, the icons appear in a selection box. Details like this help make the C-5050 Zoom's higher-end options and settings more accessible. You can operate several features, such as zoom shooting mode, with your right hand alone. Though the camera's fold-out LCD panel is less adjustable than those found on competing units from Canon and Nikon, it can rotate up to 90 degrees--handy for shots that involve holding the camera above or below your head.

Photo Management Software

Adobe Photoshop Album ($50)

Organizing the scads of photos taken with your digital camera can be a daunting task. That's where photo management software comes in. Photoshop Album employs a simple interface that starts by asking what you want to do, whether it's acquiring new images or cleaning up and sharing old ones. From there it's easy to categorize, share, or edit your photos. Pulling together a slide show of your favorites is simple, too.