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With the summer Olympics almost upon us, you may be in the mood for photographing athletic competitions—if not in Beijing, then in your own backyard or school stadium. Here are some features that can give you winning photos.

A long zoom. A digital camera with 10x or greater optical zoom—what we call super-zoom—will let you get closer to the action while maintaining good picture quality. Digital zoom almost always degrades quality, so turn this feature off. Some zoom lenses go as high as 20x optical zoom, such as the Olympus SP-570 UZ.

Fast action. If your camera is slow, you’ll miss important
moments. In most cases, this is not an issue on SLRs, but check our
point-and-shoot Ratings (available to subscribers) for models with a short first-shot delay (also
known as shutter lag) and next-shot delay.

Burst modes. All SLRs and a growing number of point-and-shoots have burst modes that let you fire off two, three, or more frames per second. A few, like the Casio Exilim EX-F1, can even do
this with a flash. That’s enough to capture a few half-twists off a high dive or a some fancy turns in a synchronized swimming routine.

Manual controls. This will allow you to adjust shutter speeds and other settings to freeze the action, crucial if you want a crisp shot of your child kicking a soccer ball and making the ball appear as if it’s suspended just above his or her foot. Manual controls will also let you slow the shutter speed down for an artistic shot with deliberate motion blur.

Adjustable LCD viewers. Some point-and-shoots, like the Canon PowerShot A650 IS, have an LCD that can swing out from the camera body and tilt or twist up to 180 degrees. This is great if you have to hold the camera over your head for a hard-to-reach shot; you can angle the LCD so you can see what you’re shooting. Some new SLRs now have live-view LCDs that let you compose shots, just as you can with a point-and-shoot. SLRs from Sony, Canon, Nikon, Olympus and others now have this capability, but you’ll pay more for it.

Image stabilization. Almost all point-and-shoots have this feature, which can compensate for "camera shake," especially useful in low-light situations where the lens stays open longer. On a digital SLR, you’ll have to choose between cameras that include IS in select lenses (called lens-based IS) or those that include it in the camera body (called body-based IS).

Low-light capability. Check our Ratings for cameras (available to subscribers) that have high test scores for Max. ISO with Best Quality, indicating how well a camera does in low light like an indoor event.

No matter what type of digital camera you buy, put image quality first. Check our point-and-shoot camera Ratings and our Ratings for digital SLRs for models with top scores. Overall, SLRs, or single-lens reflex cameras, offer the best quality and performance, but they’re the most expensive and often the largest, and they don’t shoot video clips. If your budget is very tight, you want a tiny camera, or you need to shoot some video clips occasionally, spring for a point-and-shoot.

—Terry Sullivan

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