If you want to know what satisfies consumers, chances are J.D. Power and Associates can tell you. It has built a business on finding out what corporate America's customers want and telling the world about it. This week the company released its annual digital camera usage and satisfaction study. Here are the top performers.

• Ultra Slim Segment. The Casio Exilim Zoom Series (photo above) dispatched all comers. As per Power, the "series' strong showing across all the key drivers of satisfaction makes it the highest-ranked ultra slim camera overall, with top scores in performance and ease of operation, and a tie for first overall with the Sony DSC-T series in terms of appearance."
• Point and Shoot Segment. Fujifilm's FinePix F Series topped the rankings in this category with best segment ratings for picture quality and performance, and second only to the Samsung A series in terms of appearance.
• Premium Point and Shoot. At thicker than an inch and selling for more than $230, the conquerer of this niche was the Canon PowerShot SD Series. "In this highly competitive segment," Power noted, "the Canon PowerShot SD series outdistances the pack as per survey respondents, with a significant index score spread between it and the No. 2-ranked model line in the segment, the Panasonic DMZ-FZ series."
• Digital Single Lens Reflex Segment. The Nikon D series wins the laurels. "Nikon's venerable D series ranks highest in all four survey factors as rated by consumers, and is the only DSLR camera to score above the overall segment average in the study," Power noted.

One of the biggest surprises in the survey was in the DSLR segment where Sony's A series nudged out Canon's digital EOS for second place in the category. Posted by: John Mello    Source