Best Digital Cameras

Canon PowerShot A570 IS (Around $175)

Best digital camera overall, best features. According to reviewers, the Canon A570 IS has the best blend of image quality, features and price, with lots of manual controls to give you room to grow. The 7.1-megapixel Canon digital camera takes excellent shots and includes optical image stabilization, which works to reduce blurry images caused by the natural movements of your hands. The Digic III image processor includes face-detection technology, which uses faces in a scene to set focus and exposure for the most natural color. This camera works well in automatic mode, but users can also play with manual exposure controls, as well as both an aperture and a shutter priority mode. One quibble is that the menu system can be a little dense for using these advanced settings. The Canon's movie mode is noted as excellent.


Canon PowerShot A560 (Around $135)

Best basic digital camera. If you just want a good basic camera, reviews point to the 7.1-megapixel, 4X-zoom Canon PowerShot A560. Images are good all around, and the camera has a nice movie mode and fun collection of automatic settings. Nice features for this price range include a 2.5-inch LCD display, a top ISO setting of 1600 and face-recognition technology. Although testers say the Canon A560 is generally fast, using the flash slows down shot-to-shot speeds considerably -- so it's better for outdoor shots than indoor shooting.

Nikon Coolpix L10 (Around $100)

Best $100 digital camera. If all you want is a camera for casual snapshots, reviews say the 5-megapixel Nikon Coolpix L10 is a great choice in its price range. Despite its very low price, this camera offers solid build quality, high-grade optics and technology to help take impressive photos without much fuss. There are no manual controls at all -- this camera works on no-brainer automatic -- but reports say that that the L10 does pretty well on its own, thanks to features like face-priority autofocus and best-shot selection. An excellent macro mode is perfect for taking photos for auction websites.


Fujifilm FinePix F40fd (Around $195)

Best for indoor shots and low light. The Fujifilm FinePix F40fd lacks a lot of bells or whistles and is mainly an automatic point-and-shoot camera. However, reviews say the Fujifilm digital camera occupies a neat niche. According to critics, the Fujifilm F40fd offers better low-light performance than most other digital cameras (including those in the Canon A-series), which means your indoor shots will turn out better, and you'll be able to use natural lighting more often. Image quality is on the high side of very good, according to reviews, and superior for low-light photography. However, shot-to-shot speed is slow. If indoor shots are a priority, experts say the FinePix F40fd is the best in its price range.


Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2 (Around $365)

Advanced 10-megapixel digital camera. If you want the most flexibility aside from a digital SLR, reviews say the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2 has a huge range of manual controls, image stabilization, a wide-angle 28-mm Leica lens and the ability to save images in RAW mode -- an uncompressed format that allows for extensive post-shot editing in Adobe Photoshop. The image sensor has a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, but it can also shoot 3:2 or 4:3 images at the press of a button. Images are excellent for a compact camera, but speeds are just average, so the Panasonic (like most compact cameras) isn't great for action shots. However, a good continuous shooting mode helps better capture action. If you just want a basic camera, the Panasonic is probably overkill.