Dynax 5D

At this price including an 18mm-to-70mm lens, the Dynax 5D competes with other consumer digital single-lens reflex models such as Nikon's D50, Canon's EOS 350D and Olympus's EVolt E-300.

The 6.1-megapixel Dynax 5D has the requisite manual exposure modes, but it also has five scene modes located on a top-mounted dial. Advanced users will appreciate that the camera has a dedicated ISO button located prominently just beside the mode dial, and that it has a dedicated white-balance dial on the top just to the left of the flash - an unusual but welcome feature. You can set a custom white balance, or you can use a notch on the dial to change the color temperature in 100-degree increments. The camera has white-balance bracketing, too. As with all SLRs, the Dynax 5D won't let you frame your shots with its LCD, but at least the display is a big one--2.5 inches, one of the largest on an SLR. The information on the display rotates automatically if you rotate the camera, and you can magnify the information with the press of a button. But images look grainy on the LCD; sometimes it made me think that I had botched shots when I actually hadn't.

An antishake mechanism is built into the camera body rather than the lens (as with other cameras offering antishake mechanisms), so optional lenses should be less expensive. The mechanism won't compensate for shaky hands in all settings, but it can give you a little more leeway--for example, if you're forced to use a 1/30-second shutter speed rather than the 1/60 or 1/125 second you're usually confident in.

In our image-quality tests, performed well, thanks to an above-average performance in tests for exposure and color quality. However, its did not fare as well in terms of image sharpness. Its battery did well, reaching our 500-shot testing cutoff.

The Dynax 5D can shoot at 3 frames per second when capturing JPEG images at its best setting, for up to 30 frames--that's fast, and pretty lengthy for a consumer model. (You can shoot a maximum of only 5 frames when capturing RAW files.)

However, firing away at that clip can get pretty noisy, as the camera clacks loudly when taking a shot. The lens is fairly loud when focusing, too. That and the camera's blocky plastic body contribute to an impression that the Dynax 5D is a bit less polished than some other models. It looks and feels better than the original Canon's EOS 350D, but it doesn't compare quite as well to the best consumer SLRs.