Digital Cameras: Impress With Pixels

Advanced Models

Photos that inspire emotion aren't necessarily rare, but you're more likely to produce inspiring shots if you're using a camera that can adapt to a challenging setting. Exquisite details and colors require a camera with a great lens, sophisticated image processing, and a full selection of advanced controls, such as exposure and flash bracketing, advanced white-balance management, and high-level image enhancement settings.

Canon's PowerShot G5 is the kind of camera you use to get those lush, vibrant, razor-sharp images, in nearly any conditions. In our tests the G5 took some superb shots. You can put it, like all digital cameras, on full automatic and use it as a snapshot camera. But if full auto doesn't give you the image you're after, you can often find another way to take the shot--and end up getting a good one.

We like the G5 not only because it has many advanced features, but also because it's easy to use. It has a low-light illuminator (to help the camera focus and set exposure in dim settings) and a powerful flash that you can easily adjust manually so that you don't blow out a shot.

Though the G5's 4X zoom lens is pretty slow at focusing with macro (close-up) shots, it's very accurate. You can take pictures in RAW format, which captures 36 bits of color instead of the usual 30 bits, for a wider range of color. Not sure you've uncovered all of the camera's capabilities? Canon provides awesome manuals that cover everything in great detail.

The Coolpix 5700 is Nikon's premier advanced model for consumers. Its 8X zoom lens is the longest you can find on a 5-megapixel camera, and it provides more ways to take a shot than almost any other non-SLR camera; you can tweak even its automatic mode. In full-auto mode, you can turn a dial to choose different combinations of aperture and shutter speed settings for the same exposure. The Coolpix 5700 did very well in our imaging tests, producing shots that were sharp and nicely exposed. (We take our test shots in full-auto mode, with no tweaking.)

Mastering the Coolpix 5700 requires some effort at the beginning; its deeply layered menus aren't nearly as friendly as those on the PowerShot G5. And for $900 we would expect to get an LCD that's larger than the 5700's 1.5-inch screen.

The 10X zoom lens on the Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom more than makes up for the camera's having "only" 4 megapixels of resolution. With the C-750, you're getting the 35mm equivalent of a 38mm to 380mm lens, enough to cover a wide range of situations. The camera feels like it has a powerful engine inside--it operates quickly and surely, and its batteries seem to last forever. Whether at paparazzi distance or wide-angle, this camera takes wonderful images with great color reproduction. It doesn't offer the same breadth of advanced controls as the G5 and the Coolpix 5700, but it has all of the essentials, plus an intuitive panoramic mode. The menus take some getting used to--you may have to figure out what some icons mean--and you must pop the flash up manually, but overall the controls are easy to use. And compared with its competitors in the advanced camera category, the C-750 is a bargain at $599.