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If there were any doubt remaining that the digital SLR is the camera for photo enthusiasts, 2006's blockbuster introductions wiped it out. Five 10MP cameras hit the U.S. market, all packed with high-end features and priced at $1,000 or less (street) -- including, in four cases, a kit lens.

But these cameras are about more than megapixel counts or price breaks. They represent a genuine maturing of the digital SLR. High resolution no longer comes at the price of excessive digital noise at higher ISOs. Image adjustments like color saturation, contrast, and white balance can be fine-tuned in the camera. Yet, for all the tinkering you can do with their controls, you can still switch them to auto-everything mode and use them like a point-and-shoot (a very good point-and-shoot).

If you've been waiting to make the move into a digital SLR, or you're planning to upgrade from an older DSLR, one of these five models should nudge you off the fence. To help you decide which one's for you, we've compared the models head-to-head on performance and features.

How we rank them: 4 factors

1. Image Quality
You know the mantra: resolution, color accuracy, digital noise. These three factors make up our overall Image Quality rating. (See "How to Read a Camera Test," January 2006, or www.PopPhoto.com, for the details.) We've summarized quality ratings in the camera profiles that follow; for Certified Test Results from the Pop Photo Lab, look for our full tests of each camera at www.PopPhoto.com.

Lab numbers are solid, objective measures of image quality, but you're not buying a DSLR to photograph resolution charts and GretagMacbeth color patches. For an illustration of what these ratings mean for real-world shooting, we photographed the scene on the facing page with all five cameras under the exact same studio flash lighting conditions, using each manufacturer's 50mm f/1.4 lens. All cameras were set to ISO 100, recording in highest-quality, highest-res JPEG format, using custom white balance, and bracketing around f/16 in 1/3-stops. The magnified detail shots accompanying the individual camera reports show what to expect from a 1x1-inch square taken from a 13x19-inch enlargement at 200 dpi.

As image quality is the most important factor by far in choosing a camera, we give it twice the weighting of the other factors in our overall ranking.

2. Ease of Use
Given all the adjustments available on these cameras, it's inevitable that many controls will end up in menus, even with lots of external buttons and dials. How each camera strikes a balance between external and menu controls is critical to ease of operation. We look for well-placed controls, clear labeling, logic, and simplicity in menus, as well as a good "feel" to the camera. Performance factors count here, too, as pokey autofocus, shutter lag, or short battery life also detract from ease of use.

3. Control
Control stands for adjustability: the extent to which a user can precisely fine-tune a picture -- before, during, and after the shot. DSLR controls include both the traditional camera adjustments (metering and exposure, autofocus, flash output, drive modes) and digital settings (file size and quality, white balance, color spaces). This current crop of 10MP DSLRs also feature considerable image tweaks and fixes, such as color-balance and color-saturation adjustments, shadow/highlight controls, even in-camera processing and conversion of RAW files. We evaluate the power and usefulness of these various controls.

4. System Flexibility
The legacy of the 35mm film SLR guarantees that users of any of these cameras will have plenty of choices for expanding their collections of lenses and other accessories. Even DSLR newcomer Sony can bank on a large existing base of interchangeable optics from Konica Minolta, in addition to its growing catalog of Sony- and Zeiss-branded optics. And all the tested cameras have full-featured accessory TTL flash units in their respective systems. That said, it's no secret that Canon and Nikon lead the league in this regard, given their vast lens and accessory catalogs, as well as their line of camera models ranging from entry-level bargains up to full-bore professional rigs.

Image Quality Uncovered

A floral arrangement with hands is an ideal subject to show how well the test cameras record skin tone, fine detail, shadow/highlight range, and colors ranging from subtle pastels to bright primaries.

RAW vs. JPEG

Image-quality judgements were made after evaluating highest-quality 10-megapixel JPEGs. Most of the variations in color, contrast, and detail are the result of JPEG image processing. In all cases, RAW images from these cameras exceeded JPEG quality, and differences between images became less apparent.
Editor's Note: Some readers have been confused by variations in our image quality rankins. For further explanation of our testing procedures and how we arrived at different results for the five cameras tested here, see  this discussion on the PopPhoto.com forums.

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