A multicolor CCD photometric study of the open clusters NGC 2866, Pismis 19, Westerlund 2, ESO96-SC04, NGC 5617 and NGC 6204

Accurate and deep BVI CCD photometry is presented for the core regions of six southern compact open clusters (supplemented in one case by U and R bands). These clusters generally have only scanty photometric data published, in some case only photoelectric or photographic. Together with adoption of modern reference isochrones, this has allowed us to derive improved values for their distance, reddening, age and main sequence morphology.