The looks are stunning, that's for sure. The X725 is available in red, black, silver or white, boasts a beautiful stainless steel casing and makes you wonder just how much thinner compact cameras can get

The promise of compact Four Thirds SLRs was finally fulfilled with the launch of the Olympus E-400 a year ago. That model has been superseded by the E-410 and is now joined by this, the excellent E-510

When is an SLR not an SLR? When it's a Canon S5. The S5 certainly lookslike one with its large lens, chunky handgrip, hotshoe for externalflash and enough switches and dials to start a science experiment

From Apple's eagerly awaited iPhone to an entire generation of satnavs, touchscreens are all the rage. They promise intuitive access tofeatures and an end to complex menus. But are they suited to cameras?

It could be argued that there's less need for bridge cameras now that digital SLRs are so reasonably priced. But when you can pick up a 7MP, 10x zoom compact for less than the price of most standalone flashguns, it's easy to see why they're still around

The big noise (pardon the pun) in compact cameras at the moment is high ISO, which in plain English means the ability to avoid using flash in low-light settings. Nikon's boxy but stylish S500 is another high-ISO shooter, going up to ISO 2000

This 7.2-megapixel snapper weighs in at a handy 130g and comes with a 3x optical zoom and a bright 2.5-inch LED screen. With 10 modes to choose from, the controls on the back are clear and easy to access

The DSC-T100 doesn't simply stand out as expensive for such a slimline camera, it also stands out courtesy of its amazing 8-megapixel rating. The 3-inch viewfinder is a great feature too. Slide back the lens cover and it instantly kicks to life

With its zoom range of 11-22mm, this lens sounds wide until you put it on an Olympus body, where the 2x crop factor turns it into a 22-44mm lens. This means the angle of view is less than with any other lens in its class

While the shell of the EOS 1D Mark III still feels as though you could hammer tent pegs in with it, every other feature from the Mark II model seems to have been considered for enhancement, relocation or removal. The results are fantastic

With manufacturers falling over themselves to differentiate their compacts from the alternatives, Ricoh's update of the R5, the R6, is cumbersomely described as 'the world's thinnest camera with a 28mm wide angle, 7.1x optical zoom lens'

The rise of the camera phone has made shooting from the hip, over yourmate's shoulder, or in the back of the cab on the way home from the pub, as easy as sliding open the lens cover

The relentless march of digital technology means that new features are arriving almost daily - so how do you decide which are worth pursuing? You could do worse than simply wait and see which ones Canon decides to include in its Ixus range

In almost every physical respect, this dinky DSLR camera is identical to the Olympus E-400, launched barely six months ago. It's still supremely small and light, and it noticeably lacks the bulge of a battery grip that appears to be standard

Merely having a long zoom isn't enough for a camera to succeed these days - big lenses have to be squeezed into stylish packages to raisethe pulses of increasingly fussy consumers

When Canon decided to update its top-of-the-range compact with the PowerShot G7, arch rival Nikon must have started to worry. After all, a decent choice of high-end compacts has been distinctly lacking from Nikon's line-up - until the CoolPix P5000

Canon Digital Ixus 70 review: To celebrate ten years since the first Ixus appeared, Canoncommissioned ten, special, diamond-encrusted models of what has becomethe world's most iconic camera sub-brand

FujiFilm's Z5fd is a good-quality, 6.3-megapixel digital compact withsome caveats. Its main asset is its super-slim size, which you hardlynotice in your pocket. Some features have been lost to make the camera

Sigma has gone out on a bit of a limb with the SD14 SLR and the unorthodox Foveon sensor it contains. The camera has 50 per cent more resolution than the SD9 and SD10 cameras that came before it, but it still only manages to deliver 4.7-megapixel images

Not many camera manufacturers would have the temerity to boast how few features their camera has, but that's exactly what Olympus has done with the new FE-250 - the top model in its FE (fun and easy) range of digital compacts

The Nikon D40x is neither an upgrade for the 6-megapixel D40 model, nor a replacement for the D80. Instead, it sits slightly uncomfortably between the two models, further expanding Nikon's range of budget and enthusiast SLRs

There's no shortage of wannabe snappers , so when this latest instalment of the Finepix range hovered into view, there were no shortage of journos who wanted to review it. None of them, however, sit as close to the kit cupboard as me

Olympus' latest super-zoom packs a massive 18x zoom range that goes from a wide 28mm to an amazing paparazzi-busting 504mm equivalent, and all with a full spread of manual controls

Within an hour of picking up the 770SW it had been dropped on concrete, submerged in water, jumped on and then popped in the freezer. And it still came out very much alive and kicking

The problem with many of today's compact digital cameras is the size of the sensor chips that are used in them. Most compacts use a minuscule 1/2.5-inch CCD that's so small even the best lenses struggle to record enough detail