Danny Palmerlee

Length matters--or, at least, that's what Olympus is banking on with the SP-590UZ. The 12-megapixel Olympus SP-590UZ has an impressive 26X optical zoom that rockets from 26mm at its wide end to an astonishing 676mm at the telephoto end. The lens does a bang-up job of focusing quickly (in good light, anyway) throughout the entire range, and the SP-590UZ's optical image stabilization works surprisingly well, even at full telephoto. No doubt about it, this is a fun camera. (For more reviews of megazoom cameras, see our takes on the Kodak EasyShare Z980, the Pentax X70, and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1.)

One of the most common complaints I've seen in online user reviews of the SP-590UZ is about its lack of sturdiness. Except for the lens barrel, the camera is almost entirely plastic--and, yes, if you give it a good tap, it emits a slightly hollow sound. But I wouldn't call it flimsy. The battery/media door has a secondary lock, the buttons and thumb dial are firmly set, the plastic is rugged, and the rubberized handgrip makes the camera stable in the hand. Avoid tapping it, and odds are you'll be happy with the build.

Of all the megazoom cameras I've handled, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 ($500 as of September 2, 2009) is by far the fastest. It starts up in about 2 seconds and has almost no lag time between shots. Its sharp, tilting 3-inch LCD screen makes shooting overhead and from the hip a breeze.

It's also one of the few advanced point-and-shoot cameras equipped with a CMOS sensor (the Sony Exmor R), a feature that allows handy special functions such as Twilight Mode (a high-ISO setting that shoots remarkably noise-free images) and Sweep Panorama (a mode that stitches photos together as you pan across a scene). The optical image stabilization does a good job of minimizing camera shake, even when the camera zooms to the full extent of its 20X optical zoom lens (28mm to 560mm). And Sony crowned the HX1 with a high-quality G-series lens.

As a fan of Canon's Digital Elph cameras, I was a bit disappointed by the current flagship model of the series, the 14.7-megapixel PowerShot SD990 IS. My disappointment lies mostly with the build quality of the PowerShot SD990 IS; it produces image quality that's among the best we've seen of cameras of a similar ilk.

I expect a camera priced at around $400 to feel solid. The PowerShot SD990 IS, which has a plastic body rather than the titanium casing of its predecessor (the PowerShot SD950 IS), feels a bit cheap. This, coupled with a handful of other shortcomings, chips into the camera's excellent performance.

As manufacturers produce more megazoom cameras with similarly astounding capabilities, pinpointing the features that make a camera unique becomes more difficult. For the Kodak EasyShare Z980, the standouts are ergonomics and battery life.

My first thought on seeing the Z980: "Yikes, this is bulky." When I loaded the four AA-type rechargeable batteries, I felt the same apprehension about the weight. But once I started using the camera, I came to appreciate the solidness and comfort that the extra heft gives this 12-megapixel point-and-shoot.

As a fan of Canon's Digital Elph cameras, I was a bit disappointed by the current flagship model of the series, the 14.7-megapixel PowerShot SD990 IS. That may be surprising, given that this camera dominates most other point-and-shoot cameras in terms of image quality.

But I expect a camera priced at around $400 to feel solid. The SD990, which has a plastic body rather than the titanium casing of its predecessor (the PowerShot SD950 IS), feels a bit cheap. This, coupled with a handful of other shortcomings, chips into the camera's excellent performance.

As manufacturers produce more megazoom cameras with similarly astounding capabilities (the 26mm-to-624mm-equivalent lens that's now de rigueur comes to mind), pinpointing the features that make a camera unique becomes more difficult. For the Kodak EasyShare Z980, the standouts are ergonomics and battery life.

My first thought on seeing the Z980: "Yikes, this is bulky." When I loaded the four AA-type rechargeable batteries, I felt the same apprehension about the weight. But once I started using the camera, I came to appreciate the solidness and comfort that the extra heft gives this 12-megapixel point-and-shoot.

The 24X optical-zoom Pentax X70 is one of the lightest, smallest megazoom cameras on the market, but it maintains "bigness" where it should: in the lens.

Like the best of its competitors, the 12-megapixel X70 boasts an impressively wide and exceptionally long 26mm-to-624mm-equivalent lens, which can be kicked up to a downright-ridiculous 3900mm by using the digital "Intelligent Zoom" feature. It zips from wide angle to telephoto with surprising speed, considering its range.

Panasonic's new Lumix DMC-FZ28 has features that give it a jump on many of its competitors in the advanced point-and-shoot and megazoom categories. Its predecessor (the Lumix DMC-FZ18) was already a good camera, though not without a few flaws: It couldn't zoom in video mode, and it had disappointing battery life.

With the 10-megapixel DMC-FZ28, Panasonic has nixed those two problems entirely. The FZ28 lets you use that huge 18X optical zoom while shooting video (in HD, no less), and in the PC World Test Center's tests, its battery life maxed out at 500 or more shots on a single charge (up from just 420 shots with the Lumix FZ18). The sum of those improvements? The camera was a joy to use.

Once again, Canon has upped the ante on point-and-shoot cameras. Not only is the SD880 IS Digital Elph stylish, durable, and exceptionally easy to use, it also takes great pictures and provides 28mm of wide-angle bliss. (The SD880's focal range is 28mm to 112mm; the lower the first number is, the wider the angle of view that the camera can capture.)

That wide-angle capability should strike a chord with anyone who's combed camera catalogues in search of the perfect point-and-shoot--28mm is a rare trait indeed. Even the pricier SD990 IS, Canon's other new addition to the Digital Elph series, offers only 36mm on the wide end.

What do you get when you cram 12 megapixels and great battery life into a very tiny, very durable, and sublimely easy-to-use camera? You get the Pentax Optio S12, a solid competitor for the upper echelons of our Top 10 Point-and-Shoot Cameras chart. The Optio S12 is a cinch to use, fits comfortably into just about any pocket and looks as stylish as its predecessor, the Optio S10. Though it lacks some key functions (optical image stabilization in particular, but also zoom in video mode, and advanced manual capabilities), the camera earns points with its ease of use.

Instead of packing the S12 with buttons and dials, Pentax kept the number of controls to a minimum. The back of the camera features a four-way navigation pad for accessing the self timer, flash options, focus mode, and 12 scene modes. Pressing the Menu button displays the S12's small cache of manual functions, which include dynamic range, white balance, ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation, metering, contrast, sharpness, saturation, pixel count, and quality level. The only other button on the back is the customizable "Green Button," which you can set to provide instant access to your choice of four of the camera's manual functions, or to turn the camera to full-automatic mode.

Sony's new Cyber-shot DSC-H50 has some outstanding features. But it also has a few kinks that may or may not hang you up, depending on how picky you are about certain functions.

Any list of the DSC-H50's strengths begins with its Carl Zeiss 15X zoom lens. In 35mm terms, that's a whopping 465mm when the DSC-H50 is zoomed in as tight as it can be, and 15X is an impressive telephoto capability, given the size and weight of the camera (16 ounces). Shooting on the street, the lens opened up a world of subjects that otherwise would have been too distant for me to capture. I used the telephoto constantly, often shooting from the hip using the tilting LCD display (another great feature) to remain incognito. Sony's Super SteadyShot image stabilization kept most of the photos surprisingly sharp, even when I had the lens cranked to 15X on a cloudy day.