By Daniel P. Dern

If you need (or simply want) to have a camera with you all the time, and your cell phone camera doesn't pack the power and features you need (or your cell phone doesn't have a camera), try one of the new "shirt-pocket" digital cameras.

Today's shirt-pocket cameras from leading vendors like Canon, Fujitsu, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax pack a surprising amount of photo-power, features and smarts into an incredibly small and affordable package—around 3.5-4" by 2 1/4" and just under an inch thick (not counting a case).

That's somewhere between the size of a deck of cards or a Blackberry-type phone/PDA—thin enough to fit into just about any pocket, and small and light enough to be tossed into a notebook case, briefcase or purse.

For $200 to $400, you can get a shirt-pocket camera that takes pictures anywhere from 8 to 14 megapixels, has a 3X-4X optical zoom, which may be able zoom out to 28mm wide. In addition, it will also capture video and have a host of other smarts that let it take great pictures without your having to do more than, well, point and shoot.

Here's a quick look at a few of the new shirt-pocket digital cameras:

• Canon's SD880 (MSRP $299.00) IS PowerShot Digital ELPH camera has 4X wide-angle optical zoom and 10.0-megapixel resolution, and Canon's SD990 IS PowerShot Digital ELPH camera (MSRP $399.99) has 3.7x optical zoom and 14.7-megapixel resolution.
• Kodak's EasyShare V1073 (MSRP $199.95) has several great features that are particularly notable in a camera this small and affordable. (I got to try a V1073 for a few weeks—here's some pictures I took with it.) The Kodak EasyShare V1073's features include remarkably fast shutter response (how fast it takes the picture once you press the shutter), touch-screen menu, and focusing smart enough to automatically shift into MACRO (close-up) mode when you point at something very close.
• Nikon's newCoolPix S610C(MSRP $329.00) has a nifty built-in feature to go along with its 10 megapixel resolution and 4X optical zoom 28mm-capable lens. Its built-in WiFI can connect to any available 802.11 b/g/n network—including free access through August 31, 2011 to the 10,000+ Wayport hotspots locations, which include major hotel chains—and upload pictures directly to myPictureTown, Nikon's photo storage and sharing service, i.e., you can save your pictures even when you aren't packing a computer.

A shirt-pocket camera won't give you all the fancy features of a larger digital camera, like better zoom, bright flash (and the option to use an external one), so they may not be the best for action shots, for example.

But today's shirt-pocket cameras can take stunning photos, under a wide variety of situations. And unlike a larger camera, you don't have to think twice about packing one of these. Just grab it and go!