Imagemakers

By Wilson Rothman

Kodak EasyShare DX6490 Camera This big daddy offers 4 megapixels and 10x optical zoom to produce detailed wide-angle shots and vivid close-ups. Best part: the lithium-ion battery really lasts. kodak.com ($500)

Olympus P-10 Printer It's a chain reaction: first came the digital cams, now come specialized photo-only printers like the P-10. It uses dye sublimation to produce a photo-lab-quality print in just 44 seconds. olympus.com ($200)

Sony DSC-U60 Cyber-Shot U A waterproof 2-megapixel sport cam that's perfect for any swimming hole. Who doesn't want his picture taken with the fishes? sonystyle.com ($250)

Casio Exilim EX-Z4U At less than 1 in. thick, the Z4 is an engineering marvel: a 4-megapixel camera with a retracting 3x optical-zoom lens and a 2-in. LCD screen. It takes pretty pictures too. exilim.casio.com ($400)

*STRAIGHT TO DVD

DVD players and burners are becoming increasingly popular, so it was probably only a matter of time before electronics makers started putting DVD burners right into their camcorders. After all, why hook your camera to the TV when you can just pop out the disc and toss it in the player? (The 8-cm discs can also be played on most PCs with DVD-ROM drives.) Hitachi was the first to launch DVD camcorders, back in 2000, but they were bulky and expensive. The new, slimmed-down versions are cheaper and easier to use. Hitachi's DZ-MV350A ($900, left) and Sony's DCR-DVD100 Handycam ($900, right) are the newest in a field that includes a model from Panasonic. Blank discs cost $10 to $20 apiece, but the prices are dropping all the time.