Ray Starbird
Manager, Product Development, Cox Communications

For all the advances in digital photography, the objectives haven't changed much: make the picture quality equal or surpass film, and shrink the cameras as much as possible. Progress has been measured in megapixels of resolution, optical zoom levels, and storage capacity.

In their quest to duplicate film camera functionality, digital camera manufacturers haven't taken advantage of digital capabilities to truly differentiate new products. This is recognized, however. Here at CES Kodak's CEO Antonio Perez noted they've been too focused on swapping "silicon for silver."

Slowly, however, gee-whiz features are creeping into cameras. Last year Kodak introduced the EasyShare One, which uses an included Wi-Fi radio to send pictures from the camera to either a computer on the home network or Kodak's online EasyShare Gallery. This year Kodak's big CES announcement was the V570, dubbed as the first dual-lens digital still camera in the market. One lens is a nice 3x optical zoom (39mm-117mm), and the other is a 23mm wide angle lens. That wide-angle lens works with onboard software to take nifty panoramic photos.

Let's say you're trying to capture a wide scene. Using most cameras, you'd start on one side (say the left), snap the first picture, locate an object on the right side of the viewer (maybe a blue house), then slowly turn your body to the right until that blue house is on the left side of your viewer. Snap picture number two. Lather, rinse and repeat until the entire scene is captured across multiple images. Hopefully software on your computer can help you crop and stitch the images into one photo.

The V570, however, simplifies this process, by previewing that "blue house" on the LCD, then using onboard software to stitch together what you missed. It'll also adjust lighting and combine edges to give the finished image a smooth look.

But this isn't the leap ahead we expect. Hopefully over the next few years camera manufacturers will declare a truce in the megapixel war and focus on features.

By the way, I'm often asked what to look for in digital cameras. I suggest you buy the smallest one that fits your budget, as a snazzy camera is useless if it's not handy. Try to get one with an old-fashioned viewing window, so you can frame pictures when the LCD is washed out by direct sunlight or the batteries are running low. Make sure the memory card works with your other devices (my camera, MP3 players, and Smartphone all use SD cards; the PSP, alas, uses a MemoryStick Pro Duo. Blast you, Sony!). And take the time to learn an application that eases transferring the photos into your computer, editing, and sharing. I highly recommend Google's Picasa, a free download.