'What camera should I buy?' That's a question we get asked a lot here at dpreview, and it's a tough one to answer. We use a lot of cameras, from simple point-and-shoot models to professional workhorses, and everything in between. To help you make a buying decision this holiday season, we've put together a short article which covers five of what we think are the best zoom compact cameras on the market right now, and summarized their strengths and weaknesses. Click through to see what we think. 

Nikon has announced two digiscoping accessories for its 1 System cameras, allowing them to be used to take pictures through telescopes. The DSA-N1 can be used to connect a Nikon 1 system camera directly to a telescope eyepiece. Meanwhile the DSB-N1 is a bracket that holds the camera behind the telescope, and includes a mechanical cable release adapter. Both will be available in December, with RRPs of £219.99 and £169.99 for the DSA-N1 and DSB-N1 respectively.

Just Posted: Our Canon PowerShot G15 review. The G15 is one of the latest wave of updated enthusiast compact cameras and it follows this season's trend of gaining a brighter lens and CMOS sensor in the process. It still offers a 28-140mm equivalent lens range but its maximum aperture range has been pushed to F1.8-2.8 - a whole stop faster, throughout its range, than the older G12. It's lost that camera's flip-out screen but has lost bulk in the process and has retained that rarest of things - an optical viewfinder. Will this makeover of the G-series formula be enough to win back its place at the top of the heap? Read our review to find out.

Lensrentals' Roger Cicala hasn't always been a fan of Sigma's lenses but the company's latest 35mm F1.4 seems to have got him pretty excited. He's written a very positive first impressions blog post, considering the build and test data from the first sample he's received. As usual, he's very careful to stress the limitations of what he's reporting - specifically that these are early impressions, based on a single lens that he's had little chance to actually take photos with. However, he's also someone with immense experience with lenses, and is in the unusual position of having had the opportunity to strip the lens down, so we found his insight interesting. (From Lensrentals)

Canadian photographer Kyle Clemens has created a timelapse video which shows the slow accumulation of debris on the sensor of his brand new Nikon D600. When we reviewed the D600 we expressed concern about the propensity of its sensor to gather specks of debris, and Clements raises the troubling possibility that whatever it is that's ending up on the D600's sensor could be coming from inside the camera. Click through for the full video and a link to Kyle Clements' blog where he investigates the issue. 

Imaging Resource has published an obituary of Bryce Bayer, who passed away recently. Often called the 'father of digital imaging', former Kodak scientist Bryce Bayer invented and gave his name to the so-called 'Bayer Filter' - a mosaic pattern of red, green and blue filters which allows silicon sensors that are only sensitive to luminance to capture information about the color in a scene. Patented in 1976, the RGBG Bayer Filter has since become essentially ubiquitous, being used in virtually all digital imaging systems from medium-format backs to smartphones. Click through for a link to the obituary at www.imaging-resource.com.

Just Posted: Our review of the Sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC Macro OS HSM. The latest version of Sigma's stabilized superzoom is smaller and lighter than the existing non-macro version, yet is able to add improved close-focus performance, helping it compete with the similarly-sized Tamron 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 VC PZD. These long-range all-rounders are a popular choice, so we've had a look at how Sigma's latest performs. We've also added DxOMark's test data for a selection of its competitors, to give a sense of context.

While most smartphones still lag behind dedicated cameras in image quality they come with a lot more processing power and the ability to install apps. This allows you to do things on the move which, when done with a digital camera, would require a computer, a piece of software and some serious screen time. Android's Photo Sphere feature is a good example - it allows you to stitch individual images into a 360° Photos Sphere and immerse yourself in a scene. Photo Sphere is part of the camera app of Android 4.2 - the latest version, as featured on the Nexus 4 smartphone. We've taken it out and had a play with it, click through to see how we got on.

We've added a gallery of real-world and studio images to our Canon EOS 6D preview. The EOS 6D won't be available until at least December but we've been able to borrow a pre-production model for which we've been allowed to post samples. We've shot with the camera in a series of lighting conditions, using a variety of lenses, including the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM and the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM. We've also shot an ISO sequence under challenging low-color-temperature artificial light. Click here to see how Canon's latest full-frame challenger performs.

Over at Connect we're assembling a list of Holiday deals - with the first smartphone and accessory deals listed today. We'll be highlighting more interesting offers as they come to our attention. The period around the Thanksgiving holiday is particularly prominent for shopping in the USA, with the Friday afterwards (known as Black Friday) and the subsequent Monday (dubbed 'Cyber Monday') being a focus of in-store and internet deals respectively. A recent survey suggests that smartphone usage could see Thanksgiving itself become 'Mobile Thursday' as people shop from their 'phones.

Just Posted: Our samples gallery from the Tamron SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD. The company's latest fast maximum aperture, stabilized standard zoom was announced back in February, but really comes into its own with the recent announcements of more affordable full-frame bodies from Canon and Nikon. We've put together a gallery of images shot in a variety of situations with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III to give a taste for what it can do.

We've just published a review of Panasonic's flagship super-zoom camera, the Lumix DMC-FZ200. The FZ200 goes back to its roots, offering a constant-aperture zoom range, like the FZs of old, but in most other respects it's similar to its well-regarded predecessor the FZ150. Features include a 12MP MOS sensor with a maximum ISO sensitivity of 6400, Raw shooting, and automatic panorama and HDR modes. We collaborated with Jeff Keller of the Digital Camera Resource Page to bring you this review of the FZ200 - click through to find out what we thought. 

Just Posted: Our real world samples gallery from the Leica X2. Following the Sigma DP series, Leica was one of the first companies to offer a large sensor in a compact-bodied camera with its X1. The X2 retains its predecessor's 36mm equivalent F2.8 lens but adds a 16MP APS-C CMOS sensor. We've been shooting the X2 in a variety of lighting situations and at a range of apertures to give a taste for what the camera can do. The 49-image gallery includes a selection of Adobe Camera Raw conversions as well as out-of-camera JPEGs.

Skyfall, the latest James Bond film, is topping the box office charts around the world and wowing audiences with its cinematography. It includes a sequence set on a deserted island - modeled on Hashima, an abandoned former coal-mining island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan. Dpreview member Michael Gakuran has written a blog post about his experiences on the island - filming for a Discovery Channel documentary and, earlier, being smuggled onto the island under cover of darkness to perform a little urban exploration (Urbex).

Smartphone photography is taking increasingly seriously as a medium, but this isn't because the devices have reached a certain standard. In an interview from 2009, actor and photography Joel Grey discusses the work he's done using a 1.3MP phone camera. He discusses the snobbery surrounding cameraphones (including his own), and points our that 'pictures are pictures...the subject, light and framing is everything.'

Lytro has announced two extra features for users of its Light Field Cameras - perspective shift and living filters. Perspective shift allows the viewer to re-render the light field as if captured from a slightly different position - moving this viewing position around shows off the depth information captured by the camera. Meanwhile the 'living filters' are depth-aware versions of the processing filter modes that have become near-ubiquitous in cameras in recent years. And, because the Light Field Cameras download all the light field data to your computer, these effects will be available with all existing captures.

Olympus USA has announced its M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/1.8 for Micro Four Thirds will be available in December for around $500. The lens features the same premium build quality and snap-focus manual focus mode as the company's 12mm f/2.0. The snap-focus mode is engaged by pulling the focus ring on the lens back, which reveals a distance scale and engages end-stops on the focus travel, applies firmer damping and switches the camera to manual focus mode. Olympus UK, meanwhile, has announced a price of £449.99.

Wired.com has published an interview with Stephen Mayes, director of the VII photo agency, about the importance of mobile photography in the digital age. According to Mayes, smartphone photography represents a 'pivotal moment' in photography, and calls cell phones 'a pretty pure implementation of the digital phenomenon'. Click through for more excepts from the interview and a link to the full article at wired.com

Demotix, the photo agency created to distribute and sell newsworthy images from members of the public, has been bought by image giant Corbis. London-based Demotix, which has smartphone apps to make it easier to submit images, has a community of around 6,500 freelancers and semi-pro photographers and videographers submitting work. By contrast, Seattle-based Corbis' collection of 100 million images tends to come from professionals and it more tightly curated.

We've reviewed the multi-platform mobile app Photo Editor by Aviary. Even if you're not familiar with this app, you've likely seen Aviary in effect in other mobile applications as the photo editor is available to other app developers as a software development kit (SDK) for Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7, and there's a Web Widget too. We take a look at Aviary's version, optimized for both phone and tablet screens, on Connect.