Comparing Digital SLR Cameras

Pro photographers are on alert: The well-equipped amateurs have gone digital. And while not everyone's looking to set up shop, serious shutterbugs after the perfect action shots of Junior's judo tournament are upgrading their point-and-shoot digicams to more sophisticated DSLRs, which offer higher image quality, interchangeable lenses and more overall versatility. Indeed, sales of digital single-lens-reflex cameras jumped 26 percent, to $2.2 billion, in 2007, says research firm IDC, while digital point-and-shoot models fell 22 percent compared with a year earlier. And with the market in flux, camera makers are loading up their DSLRs with a host of high-tech features that promise to reduce shaking, find faces in a crowd and even allow images to be transferred wirelessly between devices.

And of course, with hundreds of lenses available — wide-angle, portrait, tele-photo — DSLRs introduce photographers to a far wider world of visual possibilities than the point-and-shoot. But consumers usually can't choose the lens when they buy a "kit" of camera body plus lens (versus buying body and lens separately); results with the kit lens can vary widely. At least that's what we heard from Maynard Switzer, a 30-year pro and instructor at the School at International Center of Photography, whom we enlisted to help us sort through some of the newest DSLR options. Together we ventured into the jungle of soaring buildings and blinking billboards that is New York City's Times Square, to determine which camera was the sharpest shooter of the bunch.

First up: the Olympus E-510 ($650), which comes with a 14-42mm lens, the smallest — and least versatile — of the group. Still, Switzer gives the E-510 points for being the only one with a lens hood to protect images from damaging sunspots. He camera skyward and shoots a giant beer bottle on a digital billboard: "See, no flaring!" But his excitement sours as he starts scrolling through the on-screen menu. "It's not intuitive," he says, struggling to adjust the white-balance setting. Once he figures it out, he snaps some pictures, but aiming at the bright blue sky makes the nearby buildings look too dark, while targeting the shadowy buildings overexposes — washes out — everything else. This model, he says, is "just not that sophisticated."