Thirty-five millimeter film is dead. Everyone over the age of nine now owns a three-megapixel digital camera with a 10X optical zoom. Parents upgrading to telescopic lenses are passing down their relics to kids who can’t aim and have never loaded a roll of film. In the digital revolution, the disposable camera was merely an innocent bystander (along with Polaroid). But at dive shops and drug stores, the single-use underwater film camera has survived as the practical option for honeymoon photography and pool party documentation. With the recent launch of the 5.0-megapixel Digital Underwater Camera Mask from Liquid Image ($99; a 3.1-megapixel version costs $79), the end is near. To see how potent the gadget could be, I spent an afternoon underwater attempting to document a most difficult subject matter: two kids under the age of seven.

For a closer look at the finished product, launch the photo gallery here.

Make Your Camera Space-Ready

Cost: $18.37
Time: 16
Hours
Easy | | | | |
Hard

The smaller your camera, the more susceptible it is to even the slightest tremble, which can leave your photos looking like Impressionist paintings. Fortunately, optical image stabilization has trickled down from pro cams to the shake-prone pocket models. The cameras use motion sensors to detect any quiver and move a piece of the lens to compensate for it. I tested three in the most blur-inducing scenarios: in low light without a flash-the slow shutter speed gives you more time to twitch-and at full zoom, which magnifies shake.

Launch the slideshow here.

Specs: Casio EX S600BE

What: Thinnest 6-megapixel camera available


Size: 2.32 in. (h) x 3.54 in. (w) x 0.63 in. (d)


Weight: 4 ounces

Cost: $400

Dept.: Tech Lesson
Tech: Machinima moviemaking
Base Cost: Free
Time: 1 hour and up
Dabbler | | | | | Master

CASIO
EXILIM Zoom EX-Z750
MSRP: $449
Resolution [effective]: 7.2 megapixels
Video file type: MPEG-4
Zoom lens type: 3x optical/ 8x digital zoom lens, f2.8-5.1 [38-114mm 35mm equivalent]
Lighting: AF Assist lamp
LCD size: 2.5"
Frame rate and window size: 30 fps at 640x480
Dimensions: 3.5" x 2.3" x .88"
Weight: 4.48 ounces [w/o battery]
Memory Type: SD Card

E

Even with five, six, seven million pixels of resolution, palm-of-your-hand digital cameras produce disappointingly blurry results in low light. It´s nigh impossible to hold the camera steady during those long exposures. Boosting the sensitivity of the image sensor (ISO) so it can gather more light hasn´t worked, because that entails running more electricity through the sensor, which registers the current as light. This creates a pockmarked trail of incorrectly “exposed” pixels and gives you a dark and “noisy,” or grainy, image.

I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not a photographer. I don't even particularly like taking pictures. But as an editor covering digital cameras, I've dutifully learned about the new image sensor technologies as they've arrived, noted the debut of more and more film-camera-type features, and monitored the narrowing gap in quality between the digital and film-based worlds. All the while secretly thanking God that all you really had to know about buying a digital camera was its resolutionhow many pixels on its sensor.