New Adventures on the Digital Frontier

The latest, greatest digital cameras and camcorders

By Mike Kessler

Don Marr

WOULD-BE Warren Millers swear they're the greatest thing since celluloid. Amateur photographers like 'em because they don't require trips to the photomat. You'll dig a digital camera or camcorder for its ability to produce immediate evidence of your rollicking after-work singletrack session or the double-overheads no one believed you could surf. Better yet, you can e-mail said evidence to your Dilberted buds back at the cubicle. But whatever your reason for buying a digital camera or camcorder, you might as well reach for your wallet—now. True, the digital rig you buy this spring could be obsolete come autumn. But unless you're a techno-hound, waiting just means you'll miss an entire summer's worth of shots.

Digital cameras and camcorders don't use film or unwieldy cassettes; instead, an after-dinner-mint-size memory card (for cameras) or a doubly thick tape (for camcorders) stores your just-captured images, which are displayed on the machine's LCD screen. Presto! Instant artistic gratification—or, as the case may be, disappointment (you can save or delete on the spot). The bonus, of course, is the dance that a digicam or camcorder will do with your computer (camcorders also hook to your VCR, if you're feeling particularly primitive). Every digital image you capture, whether still or moving, is downloadable, Web-postable, and e-mailable. Hence their popularity among guide services, wanna-be-sponsored athletes, cyberhucksters, and Web-streaming alpinists.

Worried that the techno complexities of digital will leave you befuddled and consign your purchase to the junk drawer? Fear not: Operating the eight cameras and camcorders reviewed here is easier than their accompanying manuals—or the smarmy 15-year-old behind the electronics store counter—would lead you to believe. And to assist, we've included a glossary of terms that'll help you cut to the chase, the portrait, the wipeout—whatever.