Anyone whose photographic aspirations lie beyond a compact has several ways to go. For the ultimate in quality and control, choose an SLR, but many may prefer a bridge (or super zoom) camera such as the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150.

The advantages of bridge cameras arc many. They handle like an SLR, and give you a huge zoom range without the bulk and cost. And compared to most compacts, there’s greater control.

So it is with the FZ150. The zoom is longer, at 24x, than any of the snappers in our Luxury Compacts l-abs, giving a range of 25mm to 600mm (35mm equivalent). Aperture and shutter priority, full manual and program modes give you plenty of control and it’s packed with SLR-style dials, knobs and buttons. A mode dial helps you flick between settings quickly, and there’s a thumb wheel for adjusting settings such as aperture, plus a dedicated movie button.

It captures RAW and JPEG images at 12.1 megapixels, and video at 1080p and 50fps in either AVCHD or MP4 format, and sports a 202kpixcl electronic viewfinder and a 3in fully articulated screen. Impressively, there’s a hotshoe for mounting a flash, and a 2.5mm jack to connect an external microphone.

The half-inch sensor can’t match an SLR’s for light-capturing capabilities, but performance is close. We measured a shutter lag of 0.4 seconds and shot-to-shot performance at 0.8 seconds – as good as any compact we’ve seen. Even with flash on, it drops to only a second between shots, and in burst mode you can shoot 12 shots at full resolution in a second.

The Fujifilm FinePix F550EXR is the only compact in the £200 price bracket to offer shutter priority, aperture priority and manual shooting modes. It also offers exposure bracketing and RAW capture, making it a tempting choice for anyone interested in dipping a toe into more advanced photographic techniques. And it doesn’t hurt that you also get a 15x zoom lens (360mm equivalent).

In use, the F550EXR feels like a professional compact. Although heavy and a touch bulky, it’s reassuringly solid in the hand. Turn it on and the motorized pop-up flash rises like a little periscope – a classy touch. The controls and menu are clear, and the angled mode dial is easy to use.

Press the shutter and the response feels almost instant.

In reality, there’s a 0.4-second shutter delay, so there’s a chance you could miss the crucial shot; but because the camera responds almost as soon as you squeeze the button, it seems faster in everyday use. Shot-to-shot speeds are genuinely good. At 1.1 seconds, it’s one of the fastest here.

As soon as the light starts to fail, though, images quickly become noisy, with even neutral scenes suffering speckling. In our long-range text test, the F550F.XR produced one of the noisiest images of any camera.

In video mode footage came out dark and noisy, and the autofocus was slow. The zoom motor proved irritatingly audible too.

The Ricoh GR Digital IV is aimed unashamedly at the dued-up enthusiast – it’s the compact you slip into your pocket when your hideously expensive DSLR just isn’t practical. And it excels at this, thanks to a wide f/1.9 aperture lens, lightning fast autofocus and a range of tweak able shooting settings so vast that the average casual snapper will be sent running for their Polaroids.

The Ricoh can produce some excellent images, although given its price we’d expect that. Color reproduction is accurate and noise levels are nice and low at the bottom of the ISO range, so for outdoors and daytime use this is a nifty camera to have in your pocket. High ISO, low light shots don’t look quite so clean, with graininess showing up earlier than on the Canon S100. It’s not the most practical or versatile camera here, either.

The lens is fixed and lacks an optical zoom, the video is non-HD and feels like a total afterthought, and there’s little in the way of bells and whistles, save a hotshoe for an external flash and an electronic spirit level for keeping photos level. The GR Digital IV is good for purists, then – but it’s not the all-rounder it could be.

The Sigma DP2x’s unique feature is its DSLR-grade sensor. Divided into three layers, each of which captures a separate primary color, it’s designed to provide a film-like, analogue reproduction of color in your shots.

It actually bears out in results, too, with photos offering incredible detail levels within solid blocks of color. Dial down the ISO to 50 and 100 and the level of crispness and clarity in photos is nothing short of stunning. Combine that with low noise levels and we’d say the DP2x can deliver better pictures than any other model here.

But sadly, that’s not the whole story. The DP2x is resolutely old-school in its approach to design, features and usability, and while that might be admirable in some quarters, it also makes it harder to use. Autofocus is painfully slow, there’s no optical zoom, the screen feels tiny and cramped and video resolution is a laughable 320×240. ISO is limited to 1600, although you do get less noise at every level of sensitivity than with the other cameras. As there’s no automatic shooting mode, beginners will feel seriously out of their depth. But this camera isn’t for them. Only in the hands of a skilled photographer will the DP2x fulfill its promise.

If this test were purely based on how cool the camera looked, the Lelca would win by a country mile.

The German lens-crafter has taken the already stylish D-Lux 5 and clad it with an anodized layer of titanium. It’s a beautiful camera – and the Italian leather case that comes with it isn’t too shabby either. You also get a copy of Adobe Lightroom 3 in the box to help with processing your shots.

Those accoutrements and that design go some way towards justifying its terrifying price tag.

Thankfully its image quality is excellent too, with low noise and sharp detail in abundance until ISO 800, which is where things start to get grainy. The D-Lux 5 has the highest sensitivity of all the cameras here, going right up to IS012800 – but pics are so noisy at this setting, it’s better avoided.

The camera is near idiot-proof thanks to software that puts most controls within a button press or two. You can also change focus mode and aspect ratio instantly with the rocker switches on the lens itself. Non-idiots needn’t fret: there’s plenty of scope for delving into menus to tweak further. Overall, then, it’s only the prohibitive price that really stands between the D-Lux 5 and greatness.

This glossy, bulbous, plastic camera-and-printer combo is more like a Polaroid than the Polaroid. This analogue wonder dispenses a credit card sized “wet” print seconds after you squeeze the shutter. Two CR2 cells power the printer and flash for 30 packs of ten-sheet Mini Film.

Results closely resemble old school film Polaroids, with a softened sheen, slightly ghostly colors but also real low-tech charm. Less charmingly, the optical viewfinder gives only an approximate framing, so subjects can end up off-center.

The form and functionality of the plasticky Blackbird Fly harks back to the Roaring Twenties. Composing a picture involves looking down through a compositional window on the top, which relays a brain-confusingly round, fish-eye-like image.

The 35mm film is pretty fiddly to load -hey, we’re out of practice – but results have plenty of retro charm, though soft fuzzy frames attest to this being more a toy than proper photographic tool. The same could be said of its closest competitors in the Lomo range.

This one is a movie camera, and if you’re fed up with HD digital footage looking too clean and showing up all your spots, you’ll love it. With plenty of room for human error, the footage it serves up is jerky, softly defined and really very charming.

You actually have to wind a lever to shoot, advancing the 35mm film at a rate of three to five frames per second.

You then either send the film to the Lomo Lab for processing and they provide a CD of your short movie in return, or you get it processed the standard way, and view it on the LomokinoScope, which costs an extra £24.

With the chunky, 14-meg Z340, Polaroid returns again to what it knows best: instant printing. It uses Zero Ink (“Zink”) technology to deliver dry-to-the-touch prints.

The Z340 is digital, and-although the flattened design means the 2.7-inch LCD screen is, unusually, positioned on top-the ability to view before you print gives it an edge over the Fuji. However, the slightly fuzzy, 3×4-inch prints lack its rival’s old-school charm.

If you have a jaded color photograph from your 1980s childhood somewhere in an old album, the chances are it was shot on a Minolta or Yashica camera that looks very much like the FujiFilm X10. And this sense of deja vu is very much intentional.

With its X10, FujiFilm tries to recreate the camera styles of an era past. The X10 looks retro and, with its textured faux leather covering, is built like a camera of the 1980s. But it performs like any new kid on the block. The first thing you will notice about this compact camera is the plethora of switches and knobs all over the unit. But there is no zoom in/zoom out toggle and instead you do the same with the lens like in an SLR, and that is one feature that really sets it apart from the competition.

The F2.Q-2.8, 28-112mm-equivalent Fujinon lens system ensures that the images are crystal clear and have a depth which you won’t find in point-and-shoots. The large 2/3 inch, 12 megapixel EXR-CMOS sensor means the camera is also great for high-speed photography and can also record Full HD videos. But there is a slight time lag when you try to focus on the macro end, reminding you that this is a digital camera after all.

There is a viewfinder, complete with diopter adjustments, to compose the pictures, if you are too old fashioned for the 7.1-cm LCD display. As we said, there are so many buttons and features in this camera that it will take you a while to realize if anything is amiss. But for a camera that packs so many features to not feature a touch display in this day and age, however, seems like an unpardonable mistake. More so, if you look at the 739,999 price tag it brings with it.

Sony’s latest pocket camcorder comes with an interesting twist. As the name Bloggie Live suggests, this camera is meant for bloggers who can now upload the videos they capture directly on to their sites without bothering about transferring the content to a PC first. With live video streaming using the Wi-Fi connectivity of the camcorder, users can now directly upload videos online. The camera is capable of capturing videos at 1080p resolution, but the streaming supports resolution of only up to 480×270. It comes with an onboard storage of 8GB.

In a bold move, Polaroid has blended the features of a smartphone with a camera by announcing the Polaroid SC 1630 smart camera. Running the Android 4.0 operating system, it has a 3.2-inch touch display. This camera packs in a high-definition 16 MP camera with 3x optical zoom. Other features include automatic face and smile detection, red eye removal, color correction, etc. One can also download photo editing and photo sharing applications from Android Market and use them for uploading pictures online through Wi-Fi. It also comes with a micro SIM slot.

The Panasonic Lumix TZ20 is billed as great for traveling, and it’s easy to see why. It’s not the slimmest compact camera in town, but it brings a long 16X optical zoom which can be further extended to 21x via Panasonic’s intelligent Zoom system. A wide 24mm lens comes in handy for landscape shots, and I080i video recording lets you record your precious memories as well as in 14MP still photographs. To round it up, a built-in GPS receiver also tags location information to your photographs, so you can remember where exactly you took each photo long after the fact.

While the TZ20 is chunky for a compact, it’s still a compact which you can comfortably carry. No great surprises in its design; it follows the design of most recent Panasonic compacts, with controls comfortably laid out and easy to use. Of particular favorite is the staple Quick Menu, which gives you an overlay of settings that you can quickly adjust.

The TZ20 offers some advanced functionality with Shutter and Aperture priority modes, as well as full Manual. But the difficulty involved in tweaking the settings via the Exposure button and the d-pad has us preferring the ease of use with the excellent iA (intelligent Auto) mode. (The TZ20 is limited to an aperture range of f/3.3-5.9, which doesn’t inspire much aperture tweaking anyway.)

Auto-focus is exceptionally fast and accurate, and the TZ20 offers an impressive 16х optical zoom, making this compact lens the equivalent of a 24-384mm lens in 35mm measurements. That 16х can be further pushed to 21x (digital) with Intelligent Zoom. Despite the claims for a better quality digital crop, a crop is a crop. While we found the TZ20′s normal resolution to be a decent1400X1400LPH on our resolution chart all the way to 16x optical zoom, resolution drops to 1000X1000LPH at 21x. ISO performance is average, with clean results up to IS0400, apparent noise at IS0800 and IS01600 is best avoided.

But one thing that’s impressive is that at the furthest zooms it’s obvious that there’s some serious image stabilization going on. That’s essential, because the further you zoom the more sensitive the camera becomes to the smallest hand shake and the larger your chances of blur. Thanks to the optical stabilization built into the TZ20 (what Panasonic calls Power Optical image Stabilizer) we found that most of our zoom shots turned out steady and sharp.

Images also come tagged with their latitudes and longitudes, if you’re lucky. The service doesn’t always work, but a lot of times the GPS module managed to lock onto the positioning satellites in the sky, and deliver an accurate description of where we are. The camera then displays a read-out of your location when a lock is achieved. There’s an impressive database of over one million landmarks stored in the TZ20, so you don’t just get co-ordinates but actually names of places.

The TZ20 also comes with a touch-screen, which is complementary and not compulsory; it offers some of the same easy features as Panasonic’s G-series, with useful features like touch to focus. A 3D mode lets you capture images in mpo format, but it’s tricky and takes a little skill.

We find theTZ20 a competent camera; the wide and long lens will deal with most situations, and coupled with the intelligent AF and good image stabilization theTZ20 will be a handy all-in-one compact camera for most.

Nikon’s first try at a rugged point-and-shoot camera manages to do just about everything right-capturing sharp images, surviving drops, geotagging your photos, shooting underwater, and grabbing 1080p30 video. And it does it all quickly, with faster performance than any other rugged model we’ve tested.

Similar in design to other rugged compacts, the 16-megapixel AW100 sports a sealed lens with an internal zoom mechanism, located on the top corner of the camera. It measures 2.6 by 4.4 by 0.9 inches and weighs 6.3 ounces. Its 5x optical zoom lens covers a 28-140mm (35mm equivalent) field of view and has a nice macro capability for capturing smaller objects.

A 3-inch, 460 k-dots LCD dominates the rear of the camera. It’s very bright and sharp, making it easy to frame and review images in a variety of lighting conditions. Control buttons are rubberized and sealed, but are quite responsive to the touch.

The camera has all the standard control buttons, plus a special Action button, which can be configured to bring up the GPS world map or to adjust shooting settings. Pressing it brings up a menu from which you can adjust the shooting mode, start recording a movie, view photos, or view the world map.

The camera is rated to survive drops of up to 5 feet and can be used underwater to depths of 33 feet. I was able to drop the camera over and over again without it missing a beat.

The AW100 is the speediest rugged camera that we’ve tested. It can start up and grab a shot in 1.4 seconds, only requires 0.8 second of recycle time between photos, and records a 0.1-second shutter lag.

I used Imatest to measure the camera’s performance in terms of image sharpness and noise. The software analyzes a test chart as shot by the camera to deliver a center-weighted sharpness score, measured in lines per picture height. A score of 1,800 lines is considered to be very sharp, and the AW100 came in well above that metric—it recorded 2,166 lines. The Panasonic Lumix TS3 didn’t do nearly as well, recording only 1,347 lines.

Overall, the AW100 is an excellent first attempt from Nikon at a rugged camera. It unseats our previous Editors’ Choice winner, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS3, for performing admirably on all fronts, and for delivering snappier performance and sharper images.

This camera has a lot going for it; it’s incredibly thin dimensions, for one. With a 13-mm girth, it looks more like a mobile phone than a camera. However, that does nothing to stop it from being a fully loaded clicker. It has most of the usual modes but for a super compact, it also, amazingly, boasts 3D imaging. It has an OLED display panel, which while providing excellent viewing capacity, is a little sticky to work with. While it is reluctant to respond to touch at times, at others it exasperates by doing more than it should. For instance, you tap it to view a picture and it suo motu takes you two pictures back in the album. Also, its battery does not last as much as others do. But the TX55 creates good, clean images. It does live up to its claim to special low-light capabilities. With Full HD video, it is a conveniently tiny gadget to carry around in your pocket.