Latest developments in digital cameras and photography

Unless all you ever do with photographs is attach them to text messages or upload them to Facebook, you still need a real camera. Even models that are barely larger than a mobile phone offer optical zoom (some as high as 10x), along with a wider variety of controls than a phone. Advanced models let you shoot more types of subjects under more varied conditions, including very low light.

Slimmer superzooms. More models have zooms as great as 20x in bodies that are remarkably thin for a superzoom. They often include very good stabilizers that avoid blurry shots by minimizing the effects of handshake.

Greater choice of tough models. A growing number of cameras are designed to withstand dropping, immersion in water, and other hazards, including the Nikon Coolpix AW100 and Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS4 (above).

More innovative SLR-like models. These models offer features and performance that match many full-sized SLRs, but they're lighter and more compact. Some even surpass SLRs in certain features, such as burst mode and video autofocus. And some include excellent, versatile viewfinders.

More Wi-Fi connectivity. Cameras can't rival the more-or-less continuous connectivity of smart phones, but more advanced cameras can automatically upload shots via Wi-Fi to sites such as Facebook and YouTube. Some full-sized camcorders can do so, too.

The Nikon Coolpix S1200pj subcompact camera (above), $430, and the Sony HDR-PJ580V full-sized camcorder, $800, are unusual road companions. Each has a built-in projector that beams photos or video onto any surface, so you can enjoy vacation slide shows and home-movie screenings even if you don't have a computer or TV.

The projectors on the devices are fairly straightforward to use. On the Nikon, you select the content, slide down the projector cover on the camera front, tilt the camera to the optimal height on a tiny projection stand, and press Play. On the Sony, you swing open the camcorder's touch-screen LCD, then use controls on the camcorder to navigate to the content you want and press a button to play.

You must adjust focus manually. The devices have clearly labeled, easy-to-use focus controls above the projector's lens. Overall we found that both offered decent projections if you don't place the device too far from the wall.

As with all projectors, the farther the device from the surface on which it's projecting, the larger, but dimmer, the image. Nikon claims that the S1200pj can project an acceptable image of up to 5 feet in size, measured diagonally, and Sony says that the HDR-PJ580V can project viewable images of up to 8 feet or so. We found both claims to be true, although the images weren't very bright, so it's best to view images in a dark room. (There are five Sony camcorders on the market that have a projector; the HDR-PJ580V is the only one we tested.)

The projection feature on these devices drains the battery after about 220 minutes (Nikon) and 120 minutes (Sony), according to the manufacturers. But it adds a dimension to what are already fine performers.

Willing to forgo projection capability for a lower-priced camcorder? The Panasonic HCV500, $415, with a 50x optical zoom, and the Canon Vixia R30, $450, with a 32x optical zoom, are among your options.

A decent smart-phone camera can take photos with very good image quality—about as good as a subcompact camera's—when the subject is stationary, well-lit, and fairly close. But when shooting conditions are less than ideal, it probably needs a little help. Here are tips to get the best results:

Use camera settings. You might be surprised to find that the camera on a highly rated phone offers as many ways to customize and adjust your image-taking as do most subcompacts. Make sure you're shooting at the highest resolution and the lowest compression, especially if the camera has 5 or fewer megapixels. Few phone cameras allow you to manually adjust shutter speed or aperture, but using scene modes can accomplish many of the same tweaks. The Night scene mode should improve shooting in dim light—a challenge for the small sensors of phone cameras—and will allow you to keep ISO (light sensitivity) settings as low as possible, around 100 ISO, to minimize graininess on shots with ample light. Look for other features, too, such as a macro (close-up) setting, which might be buried in the setting menus.

Crop rather than zoom. Smart-phone cameras have only a digital zoom (not optical) that enlarges pixels and thus reduces image detail as it zooms in. If your smart-phone camera has 8 or more megapixels, our informal tests on several phones suggest you're better off taking the shot without zoom and then using the onboard editing tools to crop the image, thus enlarging the area you want to focus on.

Consider an add-on lens. Another way to zoom in close, or to get a wide-angle or fish-eye shot, is to fit a third-party lens over the phone's tiny lens. We tested two brands compatible with the iPhone 4 and 4S: Photojojo (fish-eye, $25; wide/macro and telephoto, $20 each; or all three for about $50) and Olloclip ($70 for all three lenses). We also tested the Photojojo lenses with several Android phones.

The lenses produced the intended effect without compromising the phones' image quality. But the lenses covered the phones' strobes, so we couldn't use the flash.

All were fairly easy to attach. The Olloclip fits securely around the corner of the iPhone, essentially encasing it. With the Photojojo, you must attach a small ring, using a peel-and-stick backing, to the phone; the lens then magnetically attaches to the ring. The Photojojo lenses fit fine on the Android phones we tried them on, and the company says they should fit any phone that has a fairly flat area around the camera lens. The ring sometimes came off the phone when we removed the lens, but we could easily reattach it.

The lenses require some time to attach, so they won't let you capture a spontaneous shot. But they're worth considering if you often use your phone camera as your main camera and want it to approach the versatility of a point-and-shoot.

Below are some shots taken with smart-phone lenses on the iPhone 4S.

For more test details and sample photos, read Get real-camera effects with smart-phone lenses.

Every photographer knows that you can be stuck with an out-of-focus subject if you mistakenly focus on the background or anything else. But with the arrival of the Lytro (16GB, $500; 8GB, $400), a new kind of digital camera with groundbreaking technology that uses a special light-field sensor and a powerful built-in micro-computer processor, that's no longer the case. After you shoot a photo with the Lytro and transfer it into your computer, you can adjust the photo to bring the subject into sharp focus.

But the Lytro has major drawbacks. It's pricey and, as currently, its companion software is compatible only with a Mac computer (a PC version is expected later this year). It also has an odd shape that some might find awkward to use, a tiny LCD, and no flash, video capture, or manual controls. And the native files it captures are in a proprietary format. You can export images to standard JPEG files, but they have a square shape and a resolution lower than that of images from a 2-megapixel camera.

The two images at right were produced from a single Lytro shot. On the left side, we used the software to focus on just the chain-link fence; on the right, to focus on just the ballplayer.

To shoot photos, you can use one of two modes: Everyday and Creative. In Everyday mode, we were better able to control exposure, and in Creative mode, we could control which subjects were in focus, though results were hit or miss. In Creative mode, we were also able to capture better macro (close-up) photos.

To zoom, you stroke the rubber on top of the LCD, a clunky process. The specs claim that the 8x optical lens has an f/2 aperture (which is fairly wide) throughout the range of the zoom, which means that you have a shallow depth of field at almost any zoom setting you use. This wide-open aperture also means you'll most like be able to generate the refocusing effect.

But there is a downside to having a constant f/2 aperture: For the camera to adjust exposure—when you're moving from low light to bright light, for example—it must automatically set the shutter speed and readjust the ISO sensitivity. So when you're trying to photograph action in low light, you're likely to get blurry shots.

Bottom line. Maybe someday all cameras will feature this breakthrough technology. But the pioneering Lytro is likely to appeal only to early adopters and enthusiasts. It's fun to use, but given its limitations, for most people its novelty will probably wear thin fairly quickly.