Editor's Choice 2006: High-Res EVF Cameras

At nine megapixels, Fuji's top FinePix has the highest resolution of any EVF model except our camera of the year-just a megapixel shy of the Sony's. The S9000 is less expensive, though, in part because its image sensor is much smaller. But isn't packing almost as many pixels into a much smaller chip asking for noise? No. The S9000 mitigates this consequence with proprietary image processing that separates noise from actual image information. At each ISO setting, the S9000 produces far less noise than a conventional eight-megapixel model. Depending on the subject, ISO 400 images from the S9000 were as "clean" as the competition's ISO 100 or 200 pictures. The camera's 10.7X manual zoom offers an almost ideal 35mm-equivalent range from 28mm wide-angle to 300mm telephoto. This full-featured camera even shoots in RAW mode. About $600.