What’s really nice is that as you toggle through the various shooting options, you get a short text description plus an illustrative image. Indeed, press the exposure compensation button and you’re presented with a four-way, split-screen display which shows you the effect of each different setting.

There’s even a shooting guide menu. If you want to shoot into backlight or take a close-up shot, for example, you just scroll to the relevant menu entry, press a button and the µ1010 tells you what setting to use. Press the OK button and the camera will even set up the function for you. If you’re a techno-savvy person it’s easy to dismiss these features as gimmicks, but many people will find them useful. Finally, there are two movie modes: VGA at 30f/s and 320 x 240 at 15f/s.

We liked using this camera. It offers simple, no-fuss shooting and can deliver excellent picture quality under a variety of conditions. The 7x zoom was a joy to use and really pulled in the action. This was far more useful than having a couple of extra million pixels on the CCD. The image stabilisation system does a good job in keeping things steady when you’re shooting at the longest focal length.

Sample shots

Click for full-size image

You won’t be disappointed with the results from this camera and its ten-megapixel images are fine for making A3-sized prints

Taking shots in low light wasn’t a problem, although there is the inevitable noise as seen on the singer’s top