Professional build quality, a fast 7X optical zoom and support for both Memory Stick Pro and CompactFlash II cards place the DSC F828 squarely in the semi-professional category.

The Canon PowerShot Pro 1 is a well-featured 8Mp semi-professional camera that should suit users wanting digital SLR performance in a compact package.

Casio's Exilim EX-V7 is a decent, but not outstanding compact camera. It comes with a large 7x optical zoom and manual features, both of which are great inclusions, but its image quality does have some issues.