Canon PowerShot S95

If you're looking for the best image quality you can get in a pocket-sized camera, look no further than the 10-megapixel $399.99 Canon PowerShot S95.

The lens is the big draw of this camera. The focal range is 28-105mm (35mm equivalent), which is just 3.75x optical zoom; that's not particularly impressive, but this lens isn't about zoom—it's about light. In its wide-angle position (28mm), the aperture can open all the way to f/2. This means the lens can let in a lot of light at once—key for shooting in low light without a flash.

The bright f/2 lens is also paired with an image sensor that's very large for a compact camera. Typically the larger the sensor is the better the image quality will be, and that holds true with the S95.

Video recordings from the S95 look similarly great, in 720p30 HD. The files are written as .MOV, so you can upload them right into YouTube and Facebook.

Connectivity options on the S95 are great. There's a mini-USB for connecting to your computer and a mini-HDMI for plugging the camera right into an HDTV. The camera captures photos and videos to SDXC and SDHC cards.

The S95's body is loaded with scroll wheels, which makes the shooting experience feel D-SLR-like. One ring sits around the base of the lens where it meets the body, and another is to the right of the LCD—it makes for a nice, two-handed manual shooting experience.

The 3-inch LCD screen is stellar. The average $200 3-inch LCD is made up of 230,000 dots; the S95 doubles that to 460,000, making the screen incredibly crisp and sharp.

The S95 takes an average of 2.33 seconds to boot and shoot, and 2.78 seconds between shots. The S95 feels very quick, too, because it averages just .55 seconds of shutter lag (time between hitting the shutter release and what is actually captured). Those are all good scores for a compact camera, but not even in the league of a Micro Four Thirds camera like the GF2, or the Sony NEX-3. These cameras' shutter lag is close to just 0.1 seconds, and they can shoot at 2.4 and 2.3 frames per second (respectively).

The LCD didn't show much motion blur, and offered great contrast with dark blacks. Using it to view photos and as a viewfinder was a pleasure.

The S95 is an excellent low-light shooter, and will work in most situations without a flash. Still, though, it's important to note that any D-SLR is going to have sharper images with less noise at any ISO sensitivity.