Agfa Ephoto CL50

The pace of digital camera development is so fast at the moment that the upstarts of the photographic world are starting to catch up with the century-old 35mm cameras. And whereas the rate of change in conventional camera technology has slowed, the only way is up for digital camera image quality. One of the biggest areas of growth and activity (and therefore customer expectation) is the sub-£500 market. To make an impact in this crowded arena, Agfa needs to produce something a bit special with its ePhoto CL50.

The first difference is in its resolution. The CL50 leapfrogs its Canon counterpart, the PowerShot A50 (reviewed issue 60, p166), by stepping up to 1,600 x 1,200. However, it does so only by means of the proprietary Agfa PhotoGenie technology. This interpolates the image received by the 1.3 million-pixel CCD to 1.9 million pixels, but doing this means the supplied 8Mb SmartMedia card can only hold 12 images. Using the CCD's true pixel count of 1,280 x 960 allows 24 shots, while staying at the base level of 640 x 480 creates space for 96 images.

The second, but more trivial, difference is a power-saving design for the LCD. This is quite simply a latch above the display that you lift to allow natural light in and switch off the LCD backlight - simple, but also effective, even on overcast days. Another nifty feature (but one that isn't unique to Agfa) is a microphone for adding a brief audio annotation to pictures.

The 2in LCD refreshes several times a second, allowing you to preview the contents of the viewfinder while walking, camcorder style. The screen is also used to view the stored images prior to downloading from the camera and to mark them for preservation or deletion. If you want a closer look at a photograph before you decide its fate, a zoom function lets you see the image at double the normal size.

The lens automatically withdraws into the camera body when it's finished with picture-taking duties, but it's disappointing that the only protection the lens gets is the case the camera comes in. Compared to the sleek lines of the Canon PowerShot A50, the chunky Agfa isn't going to win any beauty contests.

Where the CL50 is much more impressive is in the degree of control you have. You can adjust the shutter speed, white balance, optimise for low light/indoor pictures, select four levels of flash and even set spot metering. The control over exposure is more basic - either long or short - but this still adds useful flexibility. We were also impressed by the inclusion of a 3x optical zoom, giving the CL50 a range equivalent to a 34-102mm lens on conventional cameras. There's also a 2x digital zoom, but only for when you switch the camera to its lowest resolution of 640 x 480.

Less impressive were the camera's results outdoors. We put the CL50 through its paces at both 1,280 x 960 and 1,600 x 1,200 using PhotoGenie. The first thing we noticed was the CL50's poor reproduction of stonework - instead of marble colouring, pixels would vary between red, green and yellow. It also struggled in overcast conditions, with the image looking like a storm was about to break out, despite respectable light levels.

Notwithstanding these issues, the CL50 does capture detail remarkably well, almost rivalling the Minolta DimÅge Ex Zoom 1500 (reviewed issue 53, p177). In fact, when you zoom in for a comparison at 400 per cent, the Canon PowerShot A50's images look much more compressed. However, most people will be more interested in the image quality at normal size, and in this view the A50's pictures are more natural.