One-Stop Digital Photography Guide
Ready to buy a new camera--or get more out of the one you already own? We lab-test the latest cameras, preview upcoming models, and pick the services and software you need to go from pixels to prints.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.
Choose Your Digital Camera: Under $500
Many cameras in this group give you the best of both worlds--great features for creative control at a reasonable price. Nikon's Coolpix 4300 is one example: It captured the best photos we've seen to date, and it's affordable at $450. Other models in this category, such as Canon's new PowerShot S400 Digital Elph, are very compact and easy to use.
1. Olympus C-4000 Zoom
The Olympus C-4000 has been a top-ranking model since we first reviewed it in November 2002, and for good reason: It's affordable and doesn't skimp on features. The camera lets you capture images as TIFF files, and its virtual-dial menu makes switching among shooting modes and user-saved settings easy.
The C-4000 delivered great-looking snapshots, though we saw some slight overexposure and loss of detail in one photo taken with flash. We did find things to quibble about, however, including a stubborn diopter adjustment wheel and cryptic menu labels. It also has an awkwardly placed thumbpad control. Situated above the top-right corner of the LCD, the thumbpad's directional arrows are hard to reach while you hold the camera with one hand. The C-4000's manual focusing mode is difficult to use, too; setting it and canceling the setting later both take a lot of button pressing.
2. Nikon Coolpix 4300
The Coolpix 4300 has what many buyers look for in a digital camera: superb photo quality, compact size, and sophisticated controls. In our image-quality tests, the 4300 earned the highest score to date, reproducing distinct shades of red and orange better than most cameras, and generating shots that looked very sharp. The unit offers a comfortable right-hand grip and many manual settings, such as white-balance bracketing and noise reduction. Some controls can be annoying, however. Just to change the resolution, for example, you must press a button to enter the menus, and then press the thumbwheel control buttons at least 12 times. Operating other controls requires several unwieldy steps that can make the experience frustrating for users.
3. Canon PowerShot S400 Digital Elph
The S400 is a darling of a camera, elegantly designed and conveniently pocket-size. It earned very good marks in our tests, delivering vibrant colors and sharp detail, but some shots tended to be dark in spots. In our battery-life test, the camera's rechargeable lithium ion battery ran out of juice in 1 hour, 14 minutes (214 shots), making it one of the worst battery performers we've tested. On the other hand, the S400 does come with a compact charger that's easy to tote. The Elph is simple to use, but it has none of the manual controls (such as aperture- or shutter-priority) that some of its competitors offer. Still, if you're looking for a great point-and-shoot camera, this is it.
4. Fujifilm FinePix 3800 Zoom
Though the FinePix 3800 Zoom resembles an SLR camera that shrank in the wash, it's really more of a point-and-shoot than an advanced model. It fits nicely in your hand; the zoom control sits right under your thumb, so you can quickly zoom in and take a picture without having to move the camera. You need two hands to operate the on-screen menus; they are simple, however, and none of the other controls require much button pressing. The camera features an aperture-priority mode and exposure value compensation, but it lacks shutter-priority mode and full manual control.
The FinePix 3800's image quality was good in our test photos, showing some accurate colors and generally good contrast, though some of the outdoor pictures appeared a little overexposed. The camera performed well in our battery-life test, holding out for a solid 3 hours, 11 minutes (546 snapshots).
5. Konica Digital Revio KD-400Z
Like Canon's Digital Elph, the KD-400Z can fit in a pocket and features a stainless-steel body. The biggest design difference is the KD-400Z's sliding cover, which protects the lens. If you support the lens with your middle finger, the camera is easy to hold and operate with one hand--not always the case with smaller models. The KD-400Z's settings and controls are simple to figure out. The camera also earned high marks for image quality, producing relatively sharp pictures and bright, accurate colors. An extra perk: The KD-400Z comes with Adobe's Photoshop Elements, one of our favorite image editors. A downside: The camera's battery conked out after an hour (177 shots)--the worst score among all models here.
See our comparison chart Top 10 Sub-$500 Digital Cameras.
Best Buys: Under $500
Olympus C-4000 Zoom
Though it's been around for a while, the C-4000 is still one of the best models we've tested, and one of the most sophisticated for the money.
Nikon Coolpix 4300
The 4300 is light at only 10.1 ounces and very compact, but it is still quite comfortable to hold and operate, even with one hand. It also captured the best photos we've seen to date.
Organize Your Digital Photos
If you're tired of hunting and rifling through file folders to
find your favorite digital pictures, an inexpensive photo-organizing
application can help you locate your buried treasures. You can quickly
categorize, search, move, and edit photos with a few simple clicks.
We looked at ten organizers: ACD Systems' $50 ACDSee 5, Adobe's $50 Photoshop Album, Cerious's $80 ThumbsPlus 5, IO's $45 Presentation Manager 3.3 , Jasc's $50 Paint Shop Photo Album 4, Lifescape's $30 Picasa 1.5, Photodex's $40 CompuPic 6.2, Photools.com's $50 IMatch 3, Preclick's free Photo Organizer, and Ulead's $30 Photo Explorer 8. Each company offers a free trial of its program (downloadable from its Web site), and Ulead offers version 6 of Photo Explorer for free.
These apps have the same basic features, such as sorting files by date, name, and size; adding keywords for searching; capturing images and video from digital cameras; and uploading pics to a photo-sharing Web site. But each program accomplishes tasks in different ways, and some are easier and faster to use.
We like Adobe Photoshop Album best (see FIGURE 1); it's intuitive, full-featured, and ideal for all types of users. When you open the program, you're greeted with a dialog box that lets you import photos from your computer or from an external source such as a camera, a scanner, or a CD. Once the snapshots are imported, you'll see thumbnails of all of your photos.
While most organizers require you to drag and drop photos into a category, or type keywords into a box, Album lets you create visual tags and then drag and drop them onto any photo or group of photos in the thumbnail grid. Once you've categorized shots, you can search for them by date, keyword, file name, or category, as well as in less obvious but often more useful ways, such as photos you've e-mailed to Mom, or ones that you've shared online. These small differences make categorizing and searching more intuitive.
Low-Cost Option
Less expensive and a bit easier to use than Album is Lifescape's Picasa. It automatically searches your computer for photos stored on the hard drive or on an external drive, and converts the folders where they reside into window-pane-style albums. All of the albums are stacked in the main viewer, separated by title bars. Because your photos are laid out in one workspace, Picasa is the best program of the group at providing a quick overview of what you have and swiftly rearranging and organizing them into groups.
But Picasa is not as full-featured as other apps, so it's better for people who have fewer photos to manage. You can't organize by category, and though you can add keywords to each photo, Picasa does not show a general list of keywords, as Photoshop Album does; you have to remember the ones you've used to create a cohesive list of keywords. Picasa is also incapable of burning photos to a CD.
If, however, you need to organize many different types of digital assets (including photographs, videos, and text files), consider a database-driven program such as Photools.com's IMatch or Canto's $100 Cumulus. They are extremely customizable, allowing you to write your own scripts to manipulate files. Such flexibility makes them ideal for graphics professionals.
-- Lisa Cekan
Perfect Your Digital Photos
You'll find many common features among image editing programs:
They all allow you to crop, adjust brightness and contrast, and fix color
problems. But touching up photos in an application intended for novices can be
very different from doing so in one aimed at advanced users. We looked at
several apps and grouped them by approach.
Programs suitable for first-time users include Broderbund's $50 The Print Shop 15, Microsoft's $109 Digital Image Pro 7 (see FIGURE 2), and Roxio's $45 PhotoSuite 5 Platinum. To help you through most tasks, they use walk-throughs, showing sliders and other adjusters with helpful text that instructs you how to use them; for many tasks, you simply follow the directions.
On the other hand, they often oversimplify procedures, omitting adjustments and functions. And in some cases using the walk-through can be a slow process. For example, you often can't go backward a step within a walk-through by using Undo; you must reset and start over. If you don't want to invest time learning an image editing program, however, Digital Image Pro 7 is the best choice.
More-advanced applications such as Adobe's $90 Photoshop Elements 2 (see FIGURE 3), Jasc's $95 Paint Shop Pro 8, and Ulead's $85 PhotoImpact 8 will appeal to both skilled and first-time users. We like Photoshop Elements 2 best; its elegant interface and approach to tasks make it easier and more fun to use.
The advanced apps offer tools with a seemingly infinite range of adjustment. Clicking on a tool may cause little change in the interface, so novices may feel intimidated, but vast help libraries usually lie within easy reach. These programs don't plug instructions into the actual tool interface--instead, you'll find them in an accompanying palette or window.
Despite their complexity, you can often accomplish fixes in fewer steps with one of the advanced programs. Plus, multiple-level undos almost always work, so you can backtrack without losing your efforts. Powerful selection tools help you harness the applications' power by applying a fix or effect with great precision.
Finally, if you need to work in CMYK mode (necessary for professional, four-color printing), opt instead for Adobe's $600 Photoshop.
--Alan Stafford
Print Your Digital Photos
Photographers now have more options for printing digital images than ever before. You can take your images to a photo kiosk at a nearby store, order prints from an online photo-finishing site, or use an ink jet printer. We compared these three methods for photo quality, cost, and processing time. Here's what we found.
The Setup
The most recent addition to photo printing is a photo kiosk, a self-service station where you can get prints of your digital photos. You can find kiosks just about everywhere--camera shops, supermarkets, drugstores, and warehouse clubs.
We tried five different kiosks: Agfa's E-box (available in some camera shops), Fujifilm's Aladdin (available in Ritz Camera and Wolf Camera), Kodak's Picture Maker (widely available in shops such as Rite-Aid, Safeway, and Walgreens), Pixel Magic IStation 200 (available in some camera stores), and Sony PictureStation (available in Sony stores, some camera shops, and in Kinko's soon). Overall, we like the Agfa, Kodak, and Sony services best for their beautiful photos, ease of use, and affordable prints.
All kiosks work in much the same way: On a touch screen, you indicate your media (most accept CompactFlash, CD, floppy disk, Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, and SmartMedia), upload your pics, select the sizes, and print.
We also used five online photofinishers to print our shots: Club Photo, Ofoto, PhotoWorks, Shutterfly, and Snapfish. Among them, we like Ofoto and Club Photo best for their handsome and reasonably priced prints. As with kiosks, you upload photos, edit them if necessary, choose which pictures you want, and place your order.
The time it takes to upload pictures can be an issue, especially if you upload many shots or if you use a dial-up connection. We used a DSL connection and waited between 5 and 10 minutes to transfer five pics (totaling 5.8MB) at each site; Shutterfly was a tad slower than the other sites.
Finally, we evaluated a third printing option: an ink jet photo printer. We used the $349 Epson Stylus Photo 960 because it's one of the top-ranking models on our Top 5 Photo Printers chart.
Print Quality
Little else matters if your printed photos don't look good. Overall, we were impressed by how nice our pics turned out from all three print methods. For color and detail, we like the prints from Ofoto and Agfa's E-box best. Ofoto's prints had very nice color and contrast. Agfa's E-box produced great color and detail, though our 8-by-10-inch portrait looked just slightly undercontrasted.
Most of the prints were similar in quality and, overall, impressive, though we rated those from Pixel Magic's IStation 200 a notch below the others. Its print of our photo taken on a cloudy day looked greenish, a close-up of a butterfly was overcontrasted, and a flower looked pink instead of red. Fine details were also lost in our close-up shot. Still, you should be pleased by how good your prints look, no matter which of these services you use.
The kiosks and the photofinishing sites all print on photographic paper and use either a silver halide printing process (which is used in film-based prints) or a dye sublimation printer. Both processes tend to produce better color gradients than ink jets do. So even though Epson's Stylus Photo 960 scored highly on our Top 5 Photo Printers chart, its prints weren't quite as appealing as those from the kiosks and online services.
Cost Per Print
You can find deals at some photofinishing sites. For example, Club Photo charges 25 cents for a 4-by-6 print, and PhotoWorks offers one 8-by-10 for $2.99.
But at photo kiosks, prices vary more. Kiosk makers say they don't determine print prices--the retailer does. On our chart, prices for prints processed at a kiosk were based on our in-store visits in the San Francisco Bay Area. So in some cases, the cost may be less or more, depending on where you go.
In our experience, the Kodak Picture Maker and the Fujifilm Aladdin kiosks charged the most, each requiring that you print a full 8.5-by-11-inch sheet. Fujifilm was the most expensive at $8.99 per sheet, which included one 8-by-10, two 5-by-7s, three 4-by-6s, or several ID photos. For the same size options, a Kodak Picture Maker kiosk in Walgreens charged $6.99.
At Agfa, Pixel Magic, and Sony kiosks, you can choose smaller sheets: 4-by-6 (usually less than a dollar) or 5-by-7 ($1.49 to $3.99), in addition to 8-by-10s. If you just want one or two reprints, going to one of these services can save you money.
If you invest in an ink jet, you can save even more on prints. (We estimated costs based on the prices of ink and individual sheets of paper for the Epson Stylus Photo 960; we did not factor in the initial cost of the printer itself.) For example, a single photo printed on 5-by-7-inch glossy paper runs about 45 cents for the paper and 20 cents for the ink, totaling 65 cents.
The Waiting Game
The fastest way to print photos is on an ink jet printer. We clocked an 8-by-10-inch photo on the Epson using its best quality setting at 9 minutes, 48 seconds.
You can print an 8-by-10 at Fujifilm's Aladdin, Kodak's Picture Maker, or Sony's PictureStation within 3 to 10 minutes, but of course that doesn't take into account the time it takes to drive to a shop. At the Agfa E-box and the Pixel Magic IStation 200 we visited, we had to wait 24 hours to get our prints; the stands were merely touch-screen computers that let us order pictures. Instead of a self-service kiosk with a built-in printer, the prints from Agfa and Pixel Magic were processed at the shop's minilab (the same place where film gets developed). So you have to drive back to the store and pick up your prints.
Ordering prints online can take longer. Figuring in shipping time, your prints could take a week or more to arrive. Our orders arrived in two or three days, but the services we used were on our side of the continent. If you're in a hurry, choose overnight shipping (around $15).
Final Tally
Ultimately, the printing method you choose depends on how much you want to spend versus how much you're willing to wait. We saw only small variations in print quality across the board; photos look impressive overall. If you need your pics now and don't want to fuss with printing your own, go with a kiosk. If you can wait a few days, ordering prints online is the most economical choice and gets you the best quality. And if you're willing to give up some picture quality to save some money, invest in a good ink jet photo printer.
-- Lisa Cekan
Grace Aquino is a senior associate editor and Alan Stafford a senior editor for PC World. Lisa Cekan is a freelance writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Senior Associate Editor Richard Baguley and Executive Editor Tracey Capen also contributed to this article. Performance analyst Tony K. Leung of the PC World Test Center conducted lab tests on the digital cameras.
The Best--and Cheapest--Ways to Print (chart)
| Photo kiosk | Print quality1 | Ease of use | Cost of Print2: 4-by-6-inch | Cost of Print2: 5-by-7-inch | Cost of Print2: 8-by-10-inch | Wait time for print |
| Best Buy Agfa E-box (http://www.agfa.com)  | Outstanding | Very good | $0.39 | $3.99 | $6.99 | 24 hours3 |
Fujifilm Aladdin (http://www.fujifilm.com)  | Good | Fair | $8.994 | $8.994 | $8.99 | 5 to 10 minutes |
| Kodak Picture Maker (http://www.kodak.com) | Good | Very good | $6.994 | $6.994 | $6.99 | 5 to 10 minutes |
Pixel Magic IStation 200 (http://www.pixelmagic.com)  | Fair | Good | $0.40 | $1.99 | $7.99 | 24 hours3 |
| Sony PictureStation (http://www.sony.com/picturestation) | Very good | Good | $0.89 | $1.49 | $5.99 | 3 to 10 minutes |
| Online photofinisher | Print quality1 | Ease of use | Cost of Print2: 4-by-6-inch | Cost of Print2: 5-by-7-inch | Cost of Print2: 8-by-10-inch | Wait time for print |
Club Photo (http://www.clubphoto.com)  | Very good | Very good | $0.25 | $0.79 | $3.19 | 3 to 7 days |
| Best Buy Ofoto (http://www.ofoto.com) | Outstanding | Good | $0.49 | $0.99 | $3.99 | 3 to 7 days |
| PhotoWorks (http://www.photoworks.com) | Good | Fair | $0.29 | $0.99 | $2.99 | 3 to 7 days |
| Shutterfly (http://www.shutterfly.com) | Good | Very good | $0.42 | $0.79 | $3.19 | 3 to 7 days |
| Snapfish (http://www.snapfish.com) | Good | Good | $0.39 | $0.75 | $3.79 | 3 to 7 days |
| Ink jet photo printer | Print quality1 | Ease of use | Cost of Print2: 4-by-6-inch | Cost of Print2: 5-by-7-inch | Cost of Print2: 8-by-10-inch | Wait time for print |
| Epson Stylus Photo 960 (http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=607380) | Fair | Good | $0.445 | $0.655 | $1.205 | 3 to 10 minutes |
Sneak Peek: Promising Upcoming Digicams
We looked at several preproduction models that weren't quite ready to be lab-tested. Here are our first impressions.
Fujifilm FinePix F700: The $600 F700 boasts Fujifilm's new 6.2-megapixel image sensor, which uses SuperCCD SR technology; the company claims it increases the amount of light the sensor can capture, thereby producing detailed pics with less noise. That remains to be seen until we test a final unit.
Kodak EasyShare LS633: Kodak hasn't revealed when it will be sold in the United States, but the 3.1-megapixel LS633 is the first digital camera to have an organic light-emitting diode display. OLEDs are supposed to offer a wider viewing angle than LCD screens do (as much as 165 degrees). We could view the display at nearly every angle without its losing much brightness.
Nikon Coolpix 5400: The $799, 5-megapixel Coolpix 5400 provides a 4X optical zoom lens and simpler menus than its Coolpix 5000 and 5700 siblings do. With 15 scene modes, the 5400 will appeal to shooters more interested in getting a good picture than dwelling on the nitty-gritty of apertures, shutter speeds, and exposure compensation.
Nikon Coolpix SQ: The 3.1-megapixel SQ sports a quirky square design and a rotating lens that swivels, allowing you to see the LCD screen at almost any angle. But the screen is small and is partially obscured by the lens section when you turn it.
Olympus C-750 Ultra Zoom: The C-750's main selling point is its 10X optical zoom lens, which lets you take close-ups from great distances. You must use a steady hand (or a tripod), however, or you'll get blurry shots at maximum zoom. Though the flash is powerful, it's not a flamethrower, so it won't illuminate way-off-in-the-distance shots. The 4-megapixel, $600 C-750 has full manual control and several scene modes.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-V1: The $700, 5-megapixel DSC-V1 can focus and meter in total darkness. In its NightFraming mode, the camera can take color photos (with the flash) by employing a holographic illuminator that emits a grid of red lights to help the camera focus. The V1's NightShot mode allows you to take monochrome images without the flash. But instead of switching night modes automatically, you must flip a switch to choose which mode is appropriate for your shot.
Picture Quality: The Best and the Rest
