Pixel perfect pictures:With the latest batch of sub-compact digital cameras pushing through the eight-megapixel barrier, it's probably time to ask how much resolution is enough.
Does any happy snapper need to upgrade an older five-megapixel Canon Powershot A460 (about €114, www.amazon.co.uk) for an eight-megapixel Olympus Muji 850 SW (about €200, www.ukcamerastore.co.uk) or a 10-megapixel Sony Cybershot w170 (about €220, www.amazon.co.uk)? If you're mostly taking candid pictures of friends and family - surely the main reason for owning a pocket digital camera - the answer is probably not. Even when blown up to the size of a small poster, it's very hard to tell the difference between portraits taken with five-, eight- and even 10- megapixel cameras.
Other factors are much more likely to affect the quality of your photographs, such as whether the image is in focus, well lit and taken from reasonably close. If you can't get up close or in focus, even the 28mm wide-angle lens of the Leica C-Lux2 seven-megapixel compact (about €410, www.amazon.co.uk, www.leica-camera.com) won't save you. Your failures will loom larger than ever on the oversized six-centimetre display screen on the back of the camera. Olympus has found another selling point for its 850 SW: its resilience.
The camera is supposedly shock-, water- and freeze-proof. Don't test its endurance by throwing it off the side of the boat, though - if you're going to do that with a camera, you'll need Pentax's 10-megapixel compact, the Optio W60 (about €215, www.pentaximaging.com), which can operate four metres beneath the surface.
The camera will keep recording as it sinks into the gloom, thanks to a high-sensitivity setting for low light, as well as a 1,280- by-720-pixel video function.