Review: Roundup: Digital Camera Gift Guide

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How much you want to spend? What you want to do with your camera? These are the two most important questions to answer before you wade into the deep waters of the digital camera market.

Then, ask yourself if you're a passenger or a driver. That is, do you like to let the camera make the decisions, or do you want to learn how to make photos according to your inner artist's eye? If you're the former, most compact and subcompact cameras will take good care of you for a reasonable price. If you're in the latter group, you'll want a camera that offers more manual control and an excellent lens.

Don't get hung up on megapixels — whether you have 9 or 11 matters less than whether you have a good lens. You can have millions of lovely pixels, but if the lens is crappy, you'll get crappy photos. Get the fastest (lowest f/stop number) and widest-angle lens you can find within your budget.

Remember, the best camera for you is the one you learn how to use — when the magic moment happens, you don't want to miss it because you're fiddling with the knobs and on-screen menus.

Subcompacts: The munchkins of the digital point-and-shoot set, subcompacts are light and fit easily in a shirt or pant pocket. The vast majority lack viewfinders and manual controls. In spite of their diminutive sizes they typically cost a bit more than the compacts. Expect smaller LCDs, shorter battery life and, if you have big hands, some frustration. Great for shooting party reportage or spontaneous, embarrassing acts. Wired recommends: Sony CyberShot DSC-TX1

Compacts: A bit bigger than the subs and meant to nestle nicely into a purse or jacket pocket, these small snappers usually offer more zoom range and more spacious LCDs. Some have viewfinders, which is a boon in bright sunlight that can wash out LCDs. Most are meant for easy, point-and-shoot use, but a few add substantial manual controls. Wired recommends: Olympus Stylus 1050 SW

Super-zooms: Cameras in this category have at least 10x optical zoom and are usually bulkier than the compacts. The longer zoom range is good for travelers and people who like to shoot nature or sporting events. Many super-zooms have more manual controls to go along with their built-in scene modes. Wired recommends: Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ50

Enthusiast cameras: Ranging in size from compact to slightly smaller than super-zoom sized, these cameras offer a wealth of manual controls to satisfy serious shooters, but don't have the giant, long lenses of the super-zooms. Wired recommends: Canon S90

SLRs: The top of the food chain is inhabited by the single lens reflex camera. These are bigger, tougher beasts with interchangeable lenses for versatility. The have larger image sensors, sharp LCDs, speedy no-lag shutters and batteries that'll last for days. You can shoot them fully automatic or take complete control of your image-making by adjusting aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focus and a lot more. In spite of their complexity under the hood, even the most expensive DSLRs are fairly easy to use; some even have onscreen help guides to give you a helping hand. Plus, most DSLRs now shoot some flavor of HD video. Wired recommends: Canon 5D Mark II, Pentax K-7, Olympus E-620

Sensor size: The bigger the sensor, the less noise you'll see in the pictures your camera takes — and the better it will do with low-light shots. That's a big part of why DSLRs take better photos than compact and super-compact cameras. If you're a really serious shooter, you'll want a full-frame sensor camera like the Canon 5D Mark II — the sensors in these cameras are the same size as a frame of 35mm film, which improves image quality. It also lets you use the full field of view of lenses meant for 35mm cameras.

Focal length and zoom: Forget zoom factor (3x or 5x) — what you really want to look at is focal length, usually rendered in terms of its "35mm equivalent," or what it would be comparable to in a 35mm film camera. And concentrate on the wide end of the spectrum, not the telephoto end: A 24-120mm lens and a 30-150mm lens are both 5x zoom lenses (the longest focal length is five times bigger than the smallest, meaning a fivefold increase in magnification) but the one that starts at 24mm has a wider field of view. That can make a big difference when shooting la

ndscapes or groups of people indoors.

Optical versus digital zoom: Very simply, an optical zoom uses the glass elements inside the lens to make the subject look closer. Digital zoom is a bit of software code that enlarges a portion of the image to make it look closer. The digital zoom effectively crops the original frame and makes it bigger, but at the cost of lower image quality. 30x or 50x zoom is basically meaningless, as the image quality is so low at those extremes of digital magnification.

Video recording: Pretty much every new digital camera has some flavor of video recording capability. 1080p HD at 30 frames per second is the tops, from cameras like the Canon 5D Mark II, but you don't really need that super quality unless you're making works of art like pro photographer Vincent Laforet. Cameras with 720p HD and a HDMI output should make more than pleasing quality content that's easy to view, edit and share.

Flash: The performance of pretty much every built-in flash is underwhelming, but sometimes you've just got to have a little extra light. If you're serious about your photos, you'll want a camera that has a hot shoe for adding an external or remote flash — it's light years ahead of most integrated flashes.

How wide does the lens go? A 28mm (35mm equivalent) wide angle is the minimum in our book.

How fast (or bright) is the lens? The lower the f/stop number the better. Many compacts and subcompacts have lenses that won't go wider than f3.5; better SLR lenses go to f2.0 or even lower.

What kind of memory does it require? Most cameras now use SD cards, but a few still use CompactFlash or xD cards. Make sure you get a few extra cards of the right kind.

If you're in the store, try a few cameras to get a feel for the shutter lag. How long it takes for the camera to snap the picture once you've pressed the shutter? Less time is obviously better.

Canon S90
A beautiful, 28-105mm (35mm equivalent) f2.0 lens matches up with an innovative control ring to give aspiring shooters the light — and manual control — that they crave without giving up compactness.
$430

Canon 5D Mark II
A massive 21 megapixel, full-frame sensor; mighty Digic 4 processor; and 1080p HD video shooting capabilities make this DSLR the king of the heap. Its ability to shoot noise-free photos in low light, even at high ISO settings, make it a dream come true for many photographers.
$2,700

Sony CyberShot DSC-TX1
Stalkerazzi, rejoice! The svelte Sony CyberShot TX1 has a new 10.6mm "Exmor R" CMOS sensor with killer low-light sensitivity as well as high-speed shooting and motion-detection abilities.
$380

Olympus E620 (budget DSLR)
With a decent sensor, a decent 14-42mm (35mm equivalent: 28-84mm), f3.5-5.6 zoom lens, and a pint-sized price tag (for an SLR), the E-620 is a great way to get started in SLR photography if you don't want to risk a lot of cash.
$700