One-Stop Digital Photography Guide

Choose Your Digital Camera: $500 and Over

Cameras in this category offer high resolution--often 5 megapixels and even greater--and sophisticated photographic controls. Some models, such as the new Minolta DiMage F300, are compact and light enough to carry in your pocket.

1. Olympus C-5050 Zoom

The Olympus C-5050 Zoom earns our Best Buy award for a third time, thanks to its outstanding photo quality, good battery life, and advanced controls. In our lab tests it received some of the highest image-quality scores we've seen, producing fine detail, accurate exposures, and bright colors in its shots. The only exception was an underexposed flash picture of one of our test subjects.

The boxy C-5050 is well designed, with a solid right-hand grip. The camera also sports a fold-out LCD panel that can swivel up to 90 degrees--a helpful feature when you need to hold the camera overhead or down low to snap a photo.

Although the camera comes with a 32MB XD-Picture Card, it also has slots for SmartMedia and CompactFlash cards.

2. Canon PowerShot S50

The PowerShot S50 is an attractive point-and-shoot camera that has terrific features and takes great pictures. At just over 4 inches long and under 2 inches thick, it fits easily into a pocket. Though sophisticated, the S50 is simple to operate: For example, you can access seven scene modes (such as portrait and sports) via a dial on its top, whereas some cameras force you to wade through on-screen menus to change scene modes. Another nice design feature is the S50's protective sliding lens cover, which also serves as an on/off control.

In our image-quality tests, the S50 usually produced sharp, well-exposed photographs, though images taken with the built-in flash looked bleached out. We also noticed some noise (a pattern that looks like TV static) in several test photos; the effect was most noticeable in the blue skies of outdoor shots.

3. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F717

An inventive design, unique low-light shooting capabilities, long battery life, and dazzling images make the Cyber-shot DSC-F717 an appealing choice. It has an unusual, L-shape design, with a large 5X optical zoom lens forming one leg and a square body forming the other. It's neither compact nor light, and you need two hands to operate it comfortably. But for the most part, its controls are well placed. The lens rotates vertically around the body, allowing you to see the LCD screen when shooting awkward, ground-level shots or over heads in a crowd.

4. Fujifilm FinePix S602 Zoom

Shaped like a single-lens reflex camera, the FinePix S602 Zoom is a professional-looking unit. The large right-hand grip makes this 1.3-pound model easy to hold with one hand, even while you work the top-mounted controls for flash, exposure compensation, and auto-bracketing. Standout features include a 6X optical zoom lens and media slots for both SmartMedia and CompactFlash formats.

In our picture-quality tests, the S602 captured shades and details well but gave our mannequin overly pink skin. The camera lets you take photos interpolated to 6 megapixels--it calculates the values for additional pixels by analyzing adjacent "real" pixels. But we found no difference between shots taken with the interpolated resolution and those taken with the effective resolution of 3.1 megapixels.

5. Minolta DiMage F300

The DiMage F300's stylish rectangular body weighs only 7.8 ounces, and it's compact enough to fit comfortably in almost any pocket.

In our lab tests the F300 captured colors and our mannequin's skin tone well, but some areas of our shots appeared too dark and lost detail. To its credit, the camera is relatively easy to operate, and it offers five scene modes (macro, portrait, sports, landscape, and night).

See our comparison chart Top 10 Digital Cameras, $500 and Over.

Best Buys: $500 and Over

Olympus C-5050 Zoom

The C-5050 sports a comfortable and solid right-hand grip, and a fold-out LCD panel that can swivel up to 90 degrees. Like all cameras, it provides a full-auto mode, but it also has a slew of manual controls.

Canon PowerShot S50

The S50 features a rare combination of manual controls and portable design. It has a protective sliding lens cover that also serves as an on/off control; when powered off, the camera is slim and easy to carry.