Over the past couple of decades, photography has changed almost beyond recognition. The switch from film to digital is only part of it. Photographers have also migrated en masse, away from fixed focal length 'prime' lenses to embrace the do-it-all convenience of zooms.

The Ixus 90 IS takes up its positions in the middle of Canon's Ixus range. It lacks the wide angle and longer zoom of its superiors, yet offers this year's must-haves; image stabilisation, a high pixel count sensor, face recognition, and a reasonable price.

Ricoh is marketing the compact camera as a lighter, more discreet alternative to the DSLR without limiting the user. Ricoh’s attempted to create this type of camera through its flagship Caplio series, but this time has done away with the Caplio moniker, simply calling it the R8.

An errant splash can spell instant death for most digital cameras, water and electronics being a combination that's even less compatible than chalk and cheese. The Olympus mju 850 SW sets out to change all that. Not only is it ruggedised to offer a degree of shock resistance such that you can drop it from a height of 1.5 metres, but it's also fully waterproof.

Casio's original design brief for its Exilim 'card' range was that they should be pretty much the same height and width as a credit card. The new EX-S10 follows these principles while, more remarkably, slimming down the overall package to just 15mm in depth, making it the world's smallest 10MP digital camera.

How many of today's digital compacts are really great? How many of them manage to tick all the boxes at a price that's affordable? With the Panasonic Lumix LZ8, we think we might have found one that gets close.

This flagship model of Samsung's 'New Vision' range of cameras is characteristically slimline, at just 18.6mm in depth. Frontal high points include a Schneider Kreuznach lens that's resistant to ghosting and flare but prone to a bit of purple fringing and softness.

Many an upturned nose has been pointed in at compact cameras by 'serious' photographers but the eminently pocketable A650 is not to be sniffed at. A 12.1MP sensor takes in the view via the same 6x zoom lens as Canon's more expensive PowerShot G9.

Not only do they work well, Pentax cameras look neat and tidy - or at least they did until the Optio Z10 came along. When the rest of the camera world is going svelte, this little Pentax has gone lumpy and dumpy.

Most photographers know that a digital SLR offers the best possible image quality, but most are heavy and can draw unwanted attention when you're shooting candid street shots or if you're in a place where photography isn't really appreciated

Handbag and party cameras are a dime a dozen these days. They come in all manner of fashionable colours and they're designed to produce vibrant snaps that you can post on Facebook even if your hands are shaking from one Bacardi Breezer too many

Nikon's S51c is a new super-slim digital compact that takes good shots in bright and medium-lit situations, and tucks away to take up next to no space. Its sister is the S51, which is the same camera but without wireless ability.

This camera caught our eye in among Canon's annual end-of-year product deluge. It's the latest PowerShot and includes the same DIGIC III processor as Canon's IXUS and DSLR models.

One of Fujifilm's main aims for the F50fd was to build on the low-light performance for which its predecessors were renowned, while offering higher-res images. This tricky task has been successfully accomplished

When someone tells a reviewer that a camera is drop, shock and water-resistant, what do they seriously expect to happen? Quite... the claim's going to be tested. What red-blooded reviewer is going to take some camera maker's word for it?

The G9 is a development of the 10-megapixel PowerShot G7. The G9 might look very similar from the outside but it incorporates a series of improvements, which should greatly increase its appeal

This is not the time to be shy about your achievements - if you're any good at anything, make a noise about it. Take the Ricoh Caplio R7, a fine looking and well-built little camera that announces itself with possibly the loudest start-up noise of any compact.

This is one of those 'everything but the kitchen sink' cameras, featuring a wide-angle 3x optical zoom lens, rugged waterproof body and Bluetooth or Wi-Fi image transfer.

This camera sounds a good buy, considering it sells for just over £200. A respectable, relatively low-noise 7.1 megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom and a sturdy, brushed steel case, waterproof to 10m, generous 2.5in LCD and so on.

Panasonic churns out compact cameras like sausages from a sausage factory. At the end of this string of products (14 so far this year) comes the FX55, which comes with a very creditable 8MP sensor, a 28mm wide-angle lens, face-detection technology and a 3-inch LCD spread all over the back.

If you buy a Sony W200, allow yourself an hour to read the manual. We didn't bother and a short time after taking it out for a spin we were furiously pressing all of the many buttons to try to delete an image. Why hasn't Sony included that familiar bin icon next to a button to make life easier?Next we tried to change the ISO and again it's not obvious.

A camera that has dinky little dials and buttons is all very well for James Bond, but what about the rest of us who have stubby chipolata-sized digits? Well, the Pentax Optio T30 offers a solution in the form of a touchscreen that actually works rather well

The standout feature of this basic point-and-shoot digital camera is the touchscreen display, which transforms the way you take and edit pictures. So what's so great about touchscreen? Mainly the way it gets rid of all those fiddly buttons

Digital SLRs may be making all the headlines but rumours of the death of the compact camera have been greatly exaggerated. Panasonic's latest super-zoom revitalises the category with a mighty 18x optical zoom

Sanyo made a literal and metaphorical 'splash' with its Xacti VPC-CA6, which it claimed could resist threatening torrents of water, coffee, saliva etc. Emboldened by this stand against the elements, the company has now taken on the very might of the ocean