Liked the look of the Nikon D5000 in our review earlier this month but can't afford to cough up the £640 to make it yours? Well, according to rumours circulating in cyberspace a stripped down version of the D5000 could be on its way in the form of the D3000:

The D3000 appears to be slightly less, shall we say, fat than the D5000 and it doesn't look as if there is a swivel LCD display. It will probably have reduced flash components with a smaller viewfinder. There's no sight of a microphone or an HDMI port either.

It isn't just the D3000 that is shamelessly flaunting itself for the world to see either - the D300s is also allegedly getting in on the act:

This looks like an upgrade to the existing D300. Rumours are rife that the D300s may include 720p video recording as well as SD memory card storage, a quiet shutter mode and the muscle to continuously shoot at 8fps.

(via Electronista)

Check out our video review of the Nikon D5000:

I'll make this easy for you. If the camera is the most important feature of a mobile phone for you, then you should probably buy the LG Viewty Smart. Here's why:

A lot of phones tout their picture taking abilities but the Viewty Smart is one of perhaps three I've ever used that's got anything like the hardware to back that claim up. With its top notch lens, an excellent interface, proper chipset and very impressive sensor, it really does the job. Hours of fun.

Are you more of a Bruce Parry than a Bruce Forsyth? Do you prefer to spend your holidays clinging to an overhanging cliff face rather than clinging to the bar after one too many sangrias? Do you prefer to pitch your tent in the middle of an Arctic storm rather than sleeping in a 4* hotel room?

If so, the Pentax Optio W80 point and shoot camera could be the perfect companion for your travels. This is one hell of a tough camera, you see. This camera is "adventure proof":

- Coldproof: Perfect for skiing or snowboarding as it can stand temperatures as low as minus 10°C.
- Waterproof: Not just from the rain either, you can use this camera to take images and videos up to 5m deep.
-Dustproof: Not just great for dirty houses, this will also come in handy on desert safari.
-Shockproof - Drop this baby from a metre and it won't feel a thing. Drop it from higher than that and who knows? It's only shockproof from a metre so don't push your luck.

It's not only a durable little blighter, it's also got the spec that an ardent traveller is going to need to get good shots. For starters it's 12.1-megapixels with a 5x optical zoom. It can also capture video in HD with a widescreen resolution of 1280x720 at 30fps.

The 2.5-inch LCD screen will display crystal clear images even in bright sunlight and there's also built in face detection for up to 32 faces with smile capture and blink detection.

This camera looks very impressive. I want one already. I want one even more now I know that it comes in three colours including Gunmetal Grey. Gunmetal Grey sounds like the hardest colour ever. Can colours be hard? I bet Gunmetal Grey could kick any other colour's arse.

It's out in July in the States for $300, expect a UK release not long after with a price between £200 and £250.

(via Engadget)

I don't know about you but I was blown away by the beautiful shots of the Olympus EP-1 we saw yesterday. So, today is the number crunching now that the official release is out.

There's a 12.3-megapixel Live MOS sensor within that exquisite frame with an ISO range of 100-6400, and it's not just there were it sounds like a proper DSLR. It shoots RAW footage, if you desire, onto SDHC cards and features both in-body dust reduction and image stabilisation. It'll rattle off shots at an impressive 3fps using an 11-point AF system through live view onto a 3-inch, 230,000-dot LCD on the back. All very healthy stuff.

Word was that the Olympus EP-1 was to launch tomorrow but the internet has had other ideas about that one and images of the gorgeous little snapper have leaked onto our screens this afternoon. Whoops. Still, I'm sure they can impress us with the specs in the morning.

For now, what we have is rather stunning Micro Four Thirds camera designed in homage to the old Rangefinder film cameras. Of course, instead of 35mm stock, there's a full size DSLR image sensor in that little body and a choice of one or two lenses. The standard is a 17mm wide angle chap with a 14-42mm 3x zoom by its side.

Doubtless it'll cost a bomb but we have one night to dream. Sleep well, my friends.

(via Engadget)

I love a good camera and that's exactly what the Nikon D5000 is. I can't say I was too impressed the first time I picked it up. You don't feel like you're getting an aweful lot of bang for your quite considerable £639.93 buck whch was more like £700 plus when it was launched a few weeks back.

This one is a real grower, though, and, if it weren't for the disappointing kit lens, I'd say get your wallet out now. There is always the body only option though.

If you want to see that video I shot with it, press play on the frame below.

I felt like there were quite a few gimmicks to suck the family in with the D5000 and it made me resist its charms at first. But, one day, I'm going to have to buy a camera that I want to use, that my kids - should I trust them enough - can operate too. This DSLR does offer that.

I would never bother with those scene modes but the tilting screen did come in handy once or twice when sitting at the back of a press conference and I'm gutted at having to go back to the old Nikon less graphic interface.

If you've got a lens or two, or don't mind picking some up, then I'd say you could do a lot worse than this piece of photographic hardware. Just the body, remember, not the kit!

Buy it here

Cameras in our phones are becoming serious pieces of kit. It didn't take long for mobile manufacturers to work out that megapixels make sales and, just one year on from 5-megapixels seeming like a huge amount, we've had 8s and now 12s are just around the corner. With camera phones packing the same kind of resolution as high end DSLRs, are the days of the dedicated photography hardware well and truly numbered? Is the digital camera dead?

There's probably one thing to get out the way fast before anyone blows their top - megapixels do not equal quality. We know this. So, the short answer is that the camera is not dead and indeed will not die for at least the foreseeable future - at least, not the DSLR, but life isn't looking so rosy for the compact.

You see, camera phones are more than just megapixels these days. Just look at the likes of the LG Renoir. You can control white balance and exposure, you can manually focus, there's a world of compact features like face detection, blink detection, smile and beauty shots, anti-blur, image stabilisation, vibration reduction and they've got ISO ranges just as impressive as anything you'd pick up from Nikon, Canon et al.

In fact, with the likes of the Samsung Pixon on the horizon, there's not really a lot that all but top end compact cameras can offer that a mobile phone can't. Before long, they'll be after the big boys but until then, here's five things that the camera phone must do to mount a serious challenge:

Tech Digest's Dan Sung puts the new Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 through its paces and comes out thoroughly impressed. Part of Sanyo's Dual Range, the Xacti is designed to take great video and stills while not compromising on portability.

A choice of auto-focuses, face-following, 720p playback, a 12 megapixel sensor and a 1600 ISO, it's certainly a well-specced little blighter, but no audio output? I mean come on. If you're looking for a step up from your Flip HD or Kodak Zi6, this is certainly a good place to start.

Samsung has unleashed the first 12-megapixel camera-phone on planet Earth. The Pixon12 was launched today, will be on sale within a month in Europe and will doubtless have compact manufacturers quaking in their already quaky-shaky boots.

The news will come as a bit of a blow to Sony Ericsson who've just shown off their 12.1-megapixel Idou, or Satio or whatever it is they choose to call it, when it hits the shelves all too late in Q4. I don't suppose that 0.1 of a megapixel is going to keep them very warm at the wrong end of six months of potential profit loss.

Worth remembering that megapixels aren't everything but then, if you're reading this, you probably already know that.

For more on basic photography, check out our "how to" guide on taking better snaps.

LG Renoir review:

The new Sony Cybershot DSC-W290 was released today. Exclusive to Jessops, the Carl Zeiss lens wielding compact, packs a punchy 12.1 megapixels and a boat-load of software features all for around £240.

In black or blue and weighing in at 160g, the W290 isn't going to be a strain in your pocket but does come with all the features of an altogether more expensive compact. Boasting multi-face detection, anti-blink reduction, smile shutter and red eye reduction, the W290 has a feature set not to be sniffed at.

Though whether this means it will be any good at taking pictures is another thing entirely. Too often the practise with compacts seems just to wedge them full of megapixels, vaguely helpful and occasionally, entirely useless features with the quality of the snaps playing second fiddle.

Megapixels do not maketh a compact. A lens does though.

The thing that should set the W290 apart is Dynamic Range Optimization, which works by automatically figuring out the best exposure and contrast levels to give more natural looking photos.

Sounds like the same old shtick you've heard a bajillion times before? Me too. Hopefully we'll get our hands on one soonish and find out. If you've got a W290 tell us what you think about it in the comments, go on. Do it. I freaking dare you. What are you scared? You chicken...Go on.

Ricoh CX 1 Review:

Sony has launched three entry level DSLR cameras today in the their alpha range. This gives me the opportunity to geek out over some tech I love and find out what the html for &alpha is.

I've always quite fancied the looks of the Ricoh cameras but it was the Queen of the Compacts, Zara from Shiny Shiny, who got to take a look at the £299 Ricoh CX1 and I think she quite liked it.

Yes, it may only be blessed with a 9.2-megapixel sensor but a CMOS beats a CCD hands down in the point and press department. You also get a decent optical zoom range of a wide angle 28mm to an up close 200mm. The 4fps rapid fire will certainly come in handy and the 1cm macro is a bonus too but I'd like to see some more manual control if you're forking out 300 smackers for the privilege. Know what I mean?

You don't have to have an expensive camera to take fantastic pictures. I'm not going to say that it doesn't help but the fact is that a lot people haven't fully explored the one they've already got whether it's a compact camera, a cameraphone or indeed a digital SLR. So, this is a guide for those people with a fledgling interest in photography of how to take better photos and get the most out of your camera.

Before we get into the all the switches, modes and buttons, it's important to have an understanding of what it is the camera does when you take a photo. Once you've got an idea about how they work, then you can start manipulating them to get the kinds of shots you see in your mind's eye before they come out totally different on your camera's LCD.

Simple Basics

At its most simple, a camera is a box with a hole at the front which you use to control the amount of light coming in. The pattern of light is then recorded at the back of the box either on light sensitive film or, these days, on an image sensor which is the part you'll hear measured in megapixels. The more the sensor is exposed to light, the brighter the image will be.

You can make the hole at the front bigger and you can make it smaller and you can also decide how long the hole is open for. So, the idea is that you've got two ways that you can control the amount of light coming into the box.

Aperture

The size of the hole is called the aperture and, in cameras, that's denoted by the letter f followed by a number usually somewhere between 2 and 22. The higher the number, the smaller the hole. So, if your camera's set to an f-stop of 22, then the aperture's very small and you've hardly got any light coming in. If it's at 2 then it's massive and you've got light from the outside world pouring in - very useful if you're shooting in low light.

Shutter Speed

Now, obviously you don't want the aperture open all the time as you wouldn't be able to ever stop light coming into the camera. So there's a shutter in front of it which moves out of the way when you press the shutter release button - the main shooting button on the camera. We can choose how long the shutter is out of the way for. It's usually measured in fractions of a second and, of course, the longer you set it for, the more light comes in and the more exposed the image becomes That's the shutter speed.

Now, the other tricky thing about shutter speed is that the longer the shutter is open for, the more movement plays a factor and if the subject of your photo is not standing still then your photo will come out blurred. So, long shutter speeds are fine to use in dark conditions but only if the subject of your photo is static.

ISO

Once you'd controlled how the light comes into the camera, the only other difference you could make with old film cameras was to choose how sensitive to light your film was going to be. It was called the speed of the film because it was about how quickly the film reacted light. Typically you used to go and buy your Kodak film with a speed of somewhere between 100 and 400 and it was quoted in ASA.

These days, of course, not many people use film but the image sensor works in much the same way and you can set it to whatever light sensitivity you like. The only difference is that it's now quoted in ISO just to confuse you but the scale is essentially the same.

A low ISO means that the film isn't particularly sensitive to light, so it's good for bright sunny days. If it's pretty dark where you're taking photos you'd want your camera set to a high ISO so that it'll be very sensitive to the small amount of light available and so still be able to take a decent picture.

So, having a camera with a good ISO range, 100-6400 for example, is important so that you can take good pictures at low light levels and that's important so that you can follow the first tip of beginners photography:

TIP 1: DON'T USE THE FLASH

Don't get me wrong here. The flash is a fantastic invention. It's a brilliant way of providing light when there isn't enough naturally to take a photo. The only trouble is that it's very hard to use well.

It's a whacking great, blue, artificial light source that creates a whole shadow and perspective that isn't there and, nine times out of ten, you'll end up with a photo that doesn't look much like the scene you're trying to capture.

Worse still, and probably the greatest flash crime of all, is when people use the flash to take photos of objects far away. All that happens is that the flash goes off and reflects all the light back off objects in the foreground leaving the background virtually black. The classic example is a sun set. You've got low light conditions, so your camera will flash which will bring the trees in the foreground up lovely and bright and make the all the beautiful colours in the distance look like night.

Most cameras will try to pop up the flash at the first sniff of low light because it's the manufacturers job to make sure that your camera will offer a properly exposed image whether it's the one you're trying to take or not. Compact cameras are particularly bad for this and it's often a good idea to turn the flash off except for when it's really just too dark to get anything at all.

TIP 2: SCENE MODES

Manufacturers have realised in the last few years that sometimes you'll need to tell the camera what it is that you're trying to take a picture of so that it can make sure it doesn't accidentally ruin your shots with the flash and instead it can adjust the aperture and shutter settings to something more suitable.

So, now you'll see 10 or 20 scene modes on your camera with little pictures next to them for just about any occasion you could want to take a snap. There's ones for night scenes, candlelight, snow scenes, sports scenes, baby mode, sunsets and all sorts of others. Each one represents a different selection of shutter speed, aperture, ISO and focus settings which will be most appropriate for capturing your shot. Most of them are really well designed, so do use them because they will give you better pictures.

Thankfully cameras are getting even better at working out what it is you're trying to take pictures of and a lot of them these days have an intelligent scene mode, or intelligent auto it might be called, which will guess what you're doing. So, if you're not sure what the scene is, just set it to intelligent auto and it'll do the work for you. It won't always get it right but some makes are better than others at doing it.

TIP 3: MACRO

One mode you'll find very useful is macro mode. Macro photography is all about taking images in extreme close up. You won't find it on most DSLRs because you'll need special macro lenses but all good compacts will have a macro mode, some of which will allow you to take images at distances of just 1cm and it's definitely worth using if you are trying to capture very fine detail.

TIP 4: ZOOM

All compacts and most DSLRs will come with some sort of lens that allows you to zoom in and out of your subject. Bear in mind that digital zoom is not the same as optical zoom. Optical zoom is true zoom and maintains quality at all times whereas digital zoom will bring the image closer to you but will pixelate the image at the same time.

When zooming right up close on a subject, it's very hard to keep the camera still. In bright light it's not so much of a problem because you can still use fast shutter speeds to prevent blur, but in low light with a slower speed, it's almost impossible to get a sharp shot.

There's two major ways to avoid it. One is to use a tripod but that's a pain to carry around and even more annoying to set up. So, the next best thing is to switch on your camera's image stabiliser function. If it's DSLR it might have one in the shape of vibration reduction, if it's a compact it'll probably have two with another called something along the lines of image stabilisation. Switch them on and you'll get a steadier picture. If you really want to pull out all the stops, you could try putting the camera in sports mode too which will force it to shoot at the fastest shutter speeds it can.

At the other end of the scale, it's worth noting that when you shoot in wide angle, it will, of course, distort everything in the foreground. Now that's fun and interesting for an album cover but if you're taking snaps of your other half it will probably make them look very ugly and they will probably throw the camera at your head when you show them the photo of their face that looks like its reflected in the back of a spoon. A lens set at 50mm zoom is where you want to be at for portraits.

TIP 5: FOCUS

Out of the box, most cameras will automatically focus on whatever is in the middle of the frame. A lot of the time that's ok but often you'll want the subject of your shot to be off-centre, in which case, there's few bits and pieces you can do.

One good trick is to put your subject in the middle of the frame, half press the shutter release so that your camera auto-focuses and then, keeping that button half pressed, you can move the frame to where you want it and push down the rest of the button to take the shot without it refocusing.

The trouble is that a lot of cameras won't let you do that. Cameraphones are particularly bad for this. But help is at hand in all sorts of different ways. Scene modes are useful here again. You can tell the camera that you're taking a landscape shot and it will make sure it's focused in the distance no matter what you put in the foreground. Better still are modes such as face detection which will automatically identify any faces in frame an focus in on them wherever they are.

On DSLRs there are lots of different focus settings to play with. You can chose the size and sector of the frame that you'd like to use for the focal reference or quite a good one is to use the AF lock button that most have. It works on the same principle as holding the shutter release button half way down only this time, it's a button all to itself which you've got to keep your thumb on.

Lastly, if you still can't get the focus as you want it, you can always just switch to manual mode which you'll usually find as a switch on the side of the lens.

TIP 6: WHITE BALANCE

Sometimes you'll find that the colours in your photographs don't look as they should and usually that's because the white balance is off. White balance is done automatically most of the time but sometimes you'll need to tell your camera what white actually looks like so that it can accurately reproduce all the other colours. You're essentially giving it a point a reference to work from.

You'll often see the effects of bad white balancing when you take photos under strip lighting, which is a lot bluer than natural light, or bulb light which is a lot more yellow. Most cameras will have a number of different presets for white balance with pictures next to them for bulbs, shadows, cloudy weather and all sorts of other light conditions. Pick the right one and you'll notice all the colours start to look a hell of a lot better.

Higher end cameras allow you to manually set the white balance by focusing the lens on a uniform white surface - usually a wall or a piece of paper. It'll give a more accurate representation of your particular light conditions than a preset value and you'll get better shots. Worth using if you have the time.

TIP 7: EXPOSURE CONTROL

Sometimes you can set your camera to the right mode, you can have what you think are the perfect aperture and shutter speed settings but still you're not getting the photo you want.

Most of the time, it'll be because the camera is taking its light reading from the wrong place. If you look at the pictures below of my untidy desk and monitor, I've metered the light on screen in the one on the left and you can't see anything else but if, like on the right, you meter on a darker part of the frame then it'll make sure that all those parts are bright enough at the expense of the screen which comes across unusually bright.

You can do that before you take the shot by using the AE-Lock button on a DSLR much as the same we did with the AF-lock but a simpler way you can do it is with exposure control which the +/- button you'll find on all cameras

It's basically a brightness setting. It won't change the brightness of certain objects in your photos relative to others but it will lighten or darken the whole image so that you can at least see what it is you're trying to capture.

TIP 8: BRACKETING

This function is generally only available on DSLRs but this is where exposure control really comes into its own. If you're not quite sure how over or underexposed you want your image to be, some cameras will let you take a bunch of photos of the same image in rapid fire and with a different exposure setting each time.

You can set how many shots you want to take and at what brightness intervals you want to choose. You end up going through a lot of shots but you're guaranteed to capture the mood you're after and, since it's digital photography, you can just delete all the ones you don't like; which brings me onto my next tip...

TIP 9: TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS

It sounds obvious but memory cards are cheap as chips these days. You can pick up 4GB SDs for a fiver on Amazon which can store hundreds of hi-res images.

You're not going to run out of space, you're not wasting any resources and you can always delete anything you don't like later. Just let rip, particularly when you're happy with how you've set your camera up for your environment, and when you've found a subject you're interested in.

Work it from all angles, from differing distances and sometimes don't even look. I've taken some excellent photos shooting from the hip. It's fun, you can catch people of guard and you'll be surprised how interesting the shots look. It works particularly well with good DSLRs because they're much better at taking instant shots and much better at coping with any bizarre focusing issues and light conditions you might be randomly throwing at it.

TIP 10: FRAMING & COMPOSITION

Before the invention of Photoshop and other picture editing software, if photography wasn't all about exposure, it was about framing. Getting a shot framed right is probably the most artistic part of photography but if you're not naturally good at it, don't worry you will get better. You can always crop your shots anyway.

One of the joys of photography is discovering your own style and it's not really the place of a tech blog to start telling you all about the finer points of art but there are a couple of basic ideas that are worth bearing in mind.

The first is to make sure you've got a some foreground in your shots as well as background. You'll often see very dull landscape shots that never really capture the beauty of a scene. Landscapes are some of the hardest pictures to take well but if you add some foreground like a dead tree or some cattle and suddenly your picture has life and context. Photos with an excellent composition will lead the eye through from foreground to background.

Probably my favourite framing tip is the rule of thirds which simply put says not to place your subject directly in the middle of the frame. It's not very interesting and it's not particularly imaginative.

Instead, place the subject one third of the way over from either the top, bottom, left or right of the frame and you instantly have something that looks better. When a shot is uneven, it adds an imbalance and a conflict to the eye and that creates drama in your photography. Most cameras come with a grid overlay to help you find the thirds of the frame but you'll probably find you can do it just as well by eye.

There's plenty of other bits and bobs you can pick up on framing and composition if your read around or through your own trials, but these are a good place to start. My only other advice would be to try to think away from the obvious shot. Experiment at being too close or at an angle see what you come up with instead.

TIP 11: COLOUR CONTROL

Mess around with the colour settings on your camera. Some compacts and all DSLRs come with colour control presets which are definitely worth exploring and the two I would heartily recommend are Vivid colour mode and Black & White. The Vivid mode is fantastic if you're on holiday somewhere bright and exotic. It makes all the colours look beautiful and gives you some really stunning shots. If I shoot in colour, I usually have the setting to Vivid.

My personal favourite at the moment is probably black and white photography for a number of reasons. One is that it's very forgiving. It makes every shot look like an instant classic from a photo of a mountainside to a quick snap of some bloke on the train. It brings out textured surfaces beautifully which might ordinarily be missed in colour.

The other great area for black an white is in portraits. It flattens most skin tones, removes most blemishes and you'll generally find that even the most camera shy will be quite happy with how you capture them in black and white.

DSLRs will let you set your own colour modes by adjusting the contrast, colour and brightness and save them for later use. Well worth doing if you own a DSLR and, for my money, well worth buying one for.

TIP 12: LIGHTING

I'm not going to suggest you go out and buy a set of lights but I would tell to keep an eye on from where it is your shot's illuminated. Side lighting is nice and dramatic, front lighting is great if you want to capture a bright, blue sky and although backlighting is trickier to get the hang of in terms of getting the exposure levels right, it's well worth experimenting with.

TIP 12: MESS AROUND WITH LONG EXPOSURES

You'll probably end up with a lot of badly exposed and blurred shots 90% of the time but you can get some fantastic results with longer exposures. It works particularly well if only one element of your composition is moving while the others stay still. The classic examples are photos of waterfalls where the water blurs and it can looks like sugar or mist for magical, if slightly cheesy, effects but probably the most fun is night scenes such as the blur of car lights around a city scene at night.

You'll generally need to use tripods for these shots and with the night exposures you'll need to use bulb or B mode on your camera which allows you to hold down the shutter release for as long as you want. In general, if you're shooting handheld, you probably don't want to go any lower than 1/60th of a second to be guaranteed sharp shots.

There's all sorts of other tips and tricks of photography but that's certainly enough to work with as far as a beginners guide goes. If you've got to grips with all of that lot and you still want more, it's probably time to start forking out for some more equipment, and perhaps a good place to start would be working out how to actually use the flash.

Panasonic has announced a new addition to its Lumix FS Series of compact digital cameras, with the introduction of the DMC-FS62.

Most of the features you'd expect on a compact are here -- 10.1-megapixel, 2.5-inch LCD, face detection (up to 15 in each shot), scene selection, image stabilisation and movie mode (up to 848 x 480 WVGA resolution).

The camera has a F2.8 Leica DC VARIO-ELMARIT lens which offers 4x optical zoom - not spectacular even for a compact but acceptable - though it can be extended up o 7.1x by using the Extra Optical Zoom function, though you're then limited to just 3-megapixel shots.

I've just shinned it up and down London's Centre Point Tower to get my hands on the Nikon D5000 family DSLR camera. My first impression after this morning's thoughts are that it's pretty small - not small like MP3 players or sub-atomic particles or anything but compared to the Nikon D90, below which the D5000 sits in the Nikon consumer range, it's dinky. It's rather like a D60. Just 550g in weight including the battery.

Once you get over the size of the thing, my next question for this family camera was: "Would I really let my kids run around with a £720 piece of kit?" I'm sure it's as hardy as a DSLR can be but these things are all about the glass and it's just too easy to scratch and destroy.

If Nikon does succeed with its mission to convince families to buy their camera then I do wonder how much it will eat into the sales of the D90.

Full spec sheet over the jump.

Nikon's thrown us all a little curve ball this morning with what is essentially an upgrade and re-shape of the excellent D90 we saw released last year. The carefully named Nikon D5000 is a slightly softer, more consumer friendly approach to high end amateur photography.

It has the same 12.3-megapixel CMOS sensor and EXPEED processor combination as the D90, the same 200-3200 ISO range (100-6400 with boost) and indeed the same 11-point auto-focus system too.

The difference is that the LCD has slimmed a touch to 2.7" but in return you can swivel it about in the most interesting of angles to ensure that you can shoot high, low, left, right and just about any which way you can think of with our having to squash your body into all sorts of awkward positions. They've even added a subject-tracking mode to the AF to make video capture even easier.

The second difference, and perhaps the more telling one, is the 19 scene modes Nikon has added to one of their top end consumer DSLRs. What it looks like they're trying to create with the D5000 is a camera that all the family will be able to use - from the compact shooting casual to the very keen enthusiast.

It'll be out from 1st May for £799.99 with the 18-55mm VR lens kit or £719 for the body on its own.

More to come on D5000 this afternoon.

Nikon

Nikon D90 Review:

I've worked with the fantastic Zara Rabinowiscz for over a year now and this is by far and away her best review ever. Zara's a bit of compact camera fan, so if she's giving the Olympus μ9000 her Shiny seal of approval, then it's time to pay attention. Sit back, get out the popcorn and enjoy the show (featuring Lucy Hedges).

If, like Zara, you're convinced, then you can pick yourself one up in blue or black just over here for £299.00.

I've never used an AA battery powered camera and I'm not quite sure if it's supposed to be a plus point or not. Either way, that's how the £239.99 Nikon Coolpix L100 works. It's got plenty of good features from more powerful cameras without so much of the blink detection-type gimmicks but the question is, how does it actually stand up to use...

Meet the 380g Olympus E-450 four-thirds DSLR camera. Light, isn't is? It's an upgrade of the E420 and features a 10-megapixel MOS sensor, a new - and hopefully improved - TruePic III+ image processor and a nice, bright 2.7" LCD with 176 degree viewing angle.

It has 28 shooting modes including the kind of fluff you'd expect from a compact camera but gives you one-touch white balance, bracketing functions and a modest ISO range of 100-1600 to play with. It will now also capture RAW footage in burst of eight.

It's all pretty good value at £450 including the Zuiko 14-42mm kit lens but bear in mind that it's not a hell of a lot different than the Olympus E420 and probably soon quite a lot more expensive than it too.

Available in May.

Press Release

Panasonic Lumix G1 Review

Canon has snuck out a DSLR today that combines the processing power of the EOS 50D with the HD video recording of the 5D Mark II.

The Canon EOS 500D will shoot 1080p footage at 20fps and 720p video at a smoother 30fps, all while carrying a 15.1 megapixel CMOS sensor that offers a boosted ISO of up to 12,800. What's more, all of that will cost you just £969.99 with a 18-55mm kit lens included - considerably less than both the £1,199.99 50D and the £2,299.99 5D Mark II.