The Olympus Stylus 500 is as compact point-and-shoot camera that looks good, resists water, is super-fast, and has some neat features. Unfortunately photo quality isn’t as good as it should be. But first, the good news. This latest Stylus is compact (but not too much so), metal, and weatherproof. It can get a little wet, but that doesn’t mean it can go snorkeling with you — for that you’ll need the optional underwater case. The Stylus has a large and sharp 2.5″ LCD display that is viewable in both bright and dim lighting. Camera performance is very good for the most part, especially the startup speed — wow. The camera doesn’t have any manual controls, but you’ll find plenty of scene modes to make up for it. Other nice features include in-camera cropping, special effects, and albums.

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Although the Sony DSC DSC-P100 is not the first camera to go to for earth shattering image accuracy and professional control options, it is one of the first cameras to go to for great snapshots and portability. It’s a fun camera that has both stylish point-and-shooters and conscious picture-takers in mind. Sony was obviously factoring in a wide variety of people and this is apparent in its feature options and sleek appearance. If you’re looking for something a little more sophisticated keep on looking, but I have a feeling there are a lot of people that will be perfectly satisfied with Sony’s DSC DSC-P100.

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Overall, I think that the general design, ergonomics and lenses of the Olympus E-1 system are excellent. It’s a very useable tool. Its primary limitations seems to lie in the sensor itself (and related electronics). While the camera is capable of making excellent files at lower ISO levels, it certainly could benefit tremendously from an 8-10 MP sensor that performed well through ISO 1600 (and preferably through ISO 3200). The camera’s successor will certainly be of great interest. That said, I was struck by the generally high satisfaction level expressed by the professionals who are currently using the E-1 for their daily work. It seems to be one of those cameras that performs even better in actual use than its specifications might suggest. Perhaps it deserves more credit, all things considered, than it has sometimes gotten.

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The Olympus Mju Digital 500 is a very nice digital camera - it has an excellent large 2.5″ screen, good image quality, a stylish weatherproof metal body, an excellent super macro mode, and is extremely fast and easy to use as well. The only negatives I can think of are the lack of custom white balance and other more advanced controls, the movie mode is fairly average, and the lack of an optical viewfinder may put some people off.

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Pros: Epson R-D1 combines the intuitive operation of a classic rangefinder camera with high-quality digital capture; solidly constructed. Cons: 1.5X focal-length conversion factor limits widest angle of view to 42mm (35mm-equivalent) unless an external accessory (hotshoe-mounted) viewfinder is used. Bottom Line: Dream camera for range-finder-using documentary and street photographers who want to go digital.

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