Stories by: Gordon Laing

Canon's EOS 5D is a 12.8 egapixel D-SLR, or digital single-lens reflex, designed for serious enthusiasts and professionals. It's the first affordable D-SLR with a full-frame sensor, widely considered to be the Holy Grail of digital photography.

With the high-end camera market currently dominated by SLR (single lens reflex) digicams, you'd think there'd be no demand for a new all-in-one model. But Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-R1 isn't like any all-in-one ever released. It's got a 10.8Mp (megapixels) sensor, an excellent 5x zoom lens and, crucially, is the first all-in-one to sport the same kind of sensor as a digital SLR. It's a unique package, but how does it shape up?

Nikon's 8Mp Coolpix 8700 combines high resolutions, long lenses and stacks of features. It is capable of delivering the same 3264x2448-pixel images as its 8Mp peers - around 25 per cent more than a 5Mp camera offers, and enough detail to make good-looking A3 colour inkjet prints.

Pentax's oddly named *ist DS has a 6.1 megapixel CCD sensor that delivers images with 3008 x 2008 pixel resolution and sufficient detail to make good-looking A3 colour inkjet prints. Like most other digital SLRs, the CCD sensor is physically larger than those in consumer digital cameras, allowing lower noise levels even at high sensitivities.

Canon's EOS 20D is an 8.2 megapixel digital SLR which is aimed at keen amateurs and professionals.

The Olympus Camedia C-8080 Wide Zoom is the latest in a raft of new 8 megapixel digital cameras. Like its 8MP rivals from Canon, Nikon, Sony and Konica Minolta, it captures enough detail to make great looking inkjet prints up to A3 size - a considerable leap from what's possible with 5Mp models.