Olympus C-8080WZ

The eight Megapixel Olympus C8080WZ compares very nicely against the competition on this list. The Olympus product development team didn’t just stick an 8 megapixel CCD to an old body. They started with an ergonomically designed new body and added a specially designed wide angle zoom, an extensive range of manual controls, an LCD screen that doesn’t fade in outdoor light, almost infinite tweak ability, and their new Tru-pic TURBO image processor for superior image quality and improved speed.

There’s no such thing as a perfect camera, but the C8080 comes pretty close. It provides the fine balance of image capability, durability, ergonomics and controls. This camera encourages you to push the creative potential of the digital medium.

Nikon D2X

The new D2X Professional digital SLR has a 12.4 million pixel DX format CMOS sensor, by default the D2X can shoot at 5 fps, however it has an interesting 6.8 milion pixel option which reduces the sensing area (to a FOV crop of 2x) but increases the frame rate to 8 fps. Hence the D2X can be seen as two cameras in one, a 12.4 million pixel high resolution shooter and a 6.8 million pixel high frame rate shooter.

Obviously the use of CMOS is new to Nikon but also new on this camera is a four channel read-out from the sensor and the ability to perform WB correction to the analogue data before it is digitized. Also new is the WT-2 wireless transmitter with 802.11 b/g support and wireless Capture Control.

Sony DSC-F828

The Sony DSC-F828 sports a new Carl Zeiss T f2.0-f2.8/28-200mm (35mm equivalent) zoom lens with Sony’s very fast Hologram Laser assisted auto focus and the ability to mount both Sony and third party external flash units. The Sony F828 has a flexible range of exposure options, which includes: Auto, Program AE w/Shift, Shutter priority, Aperture priority, Manual, Scene modes (Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, and Portrait), Movie, NightShot, and Night Framing modes.

When you use the camera in Auto mode the camera controls everything. You will have to of course set your resolution, zoom, capture and flash levels yourself. In Program mode you can adjust everything. For the advanced user, the adjustments are limitless. Like the other cameras on the list, the Sony DSC-F828 is a great camera for photographers stepping up from the point and shoot world.