New recommended SLRs: Lighter, Smaller, Easier to Use

Among digital cameras, SLRs have always held top honors for offering the best quality photos. They've also generally been the heaviest and largest. Recently, though, camera manufacturers have begun producing SLRs designed to appeal to people accustomed to the conveniences of a compact camera.

Take our latest pack of SLR Quick Picks. There's the 6-megapixel Nikon D40 ($600), which we've long recommended, and its brandmate, the 10-megapixel Nikon D40x ($800, seen at right), which we've added to our list along with the 10-megapixel Olympus Evolt E-410 ($800). Where most digital SLRs weighed in at 2 pounds or more as recently as a year ago, all these cameras weigh less than 20 ounces and are exceedingly compact. They won't fit into a pocket or purse, but they're certainly portable and won't give you a backache--although weight and bulk will, of course, vary with the lens you're using.

In addition to being compact and lightweight, all are very easy to use, with very good image quality, pop-up flashes (as well as a hot shoe, for attaching a more powerful external strobe) and excellent battery life.

Related information:

• Consumer Reports' Buying Advice: How to choose a digital camera
• Ratings: Digital SLR lenses (available to ConsumerReports.org subscribers only)
• Review: Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 camera

Ease of use was at the heart of Nikon's overhaul of its graphical interface on the D40 and D40x: you can use a generous, 2.5-inch LCD to find important exposure information. There's also a help button when you need to find out what a particular setting means.

Both Nikons include in-camera image correction, such as cropping and filter effects. They also feature a 2.5 percent spot meter and use the same superb metering system as pricier Nikons (like the D80). The main advantages of the D40x over the D40 are greater resolution; the ability to shoot 3 frames per second, instead of 2.5, continuously for up to 100 JPEG images; and a low ISO setting of 100 (instead of 200), which is most often used in well-lit situations and can produce cleaner, noise-free images than higher ISO settings.

One caveat if you own older lenses: Both the D40 and the D40x are designed for use primarily with Nikon's newer DX-format Nikkor lenses. Many older Nikon-compatible lenses won't autofocus when installed on either model.

Olympus was also busy doing some innovative work on their LCDs and SLR system. The Evolt E-410 is the only one of our Quick Picks with through-the-lens live view technology, which the company introduced last year. Live view lets you you choose how to compose your photos: You can peer through the lens the way film SLR photographers have done for years. Or you can compose your shots on the camera's LCD just as with a point-and-shoot camera by extending your arm and looking at the display to compose your shot before pressing the shutter release.

There are some other things you can do with the E-410's live view preview. You can choose between two modes: you can have an autofocus setting, which relies on the camera to set the focus. Or you can manually focus with a 10x magnification feature. The latter mode can be very useful if you're setting up a product shot (say, for a photo you want to post on eBay) and you want to make sure the product is in sharp focus.

The Evolt E-410 also features hardware-based dust removal, fully customizable RAW+JPEG combinations, spot metering with a shadow- and highlight-based spot, and unlimited continuous shooting on a fast card with HQ-quality JPEG. It's a better choice than the Nikons if you really need to capture every moment in a long sequence, say for sports photography or certain action shots. But in most cases, the Nikons are equally good choices.

We'll be updating our full Ratings of digital SLRs in late October, including performance results for the above three recommended SLRs, plus the Sigma SD 14.

-- Terry Sullivan

—Paul Eng