New camera round-up: Six of the best

Not to be outdone in the zoom stakes, Olympus presents the SP-560. It's the latest in the recent trend towards whopping 18x optical zooms, with the added bonus of being satisfyingly wide at the other end (equivalent to 27-486mm). Optical image stabilisation is included, naturally, and there's 8 megapixels and a 64mm (2.5-inch) LCD onboard.

The SP-560 also boasts shadow adjustment technology for those high-contrast scenes where deep shadows can throw off the exposure. Face detection is in there, and on the slightly pointless front there's a mode to detect when people are smiling. It takes AA batteries (thumbs-up) and xD memory cards (thumbs down).