What Is The Best Compact Digital Camera To Buy |BEST|
The best compact cameras pack smartphone-beating photo skills into pocketable bodies. You won't find many cheap point-and-shoot models on the shelves today, but today's best premium compacts benefit from large sensors, versatile zoom ranges, high-quality lenses and sharp electronic viewfinders. All of these features trump today's smartphones and make them great tools for travel, street and holiday photography.
what is the best compact digital camera to buy
Right now, we think the best compact camera is currently the Fujifilm X100V. While its fixed 23mm lens won't suit those looking for maximum flexibility, it's a camera that's packed with premium, pro-friendly features. These include a tilting screen, hybrid viewfinder and rapid autofocus, which makes it an easy camera to shoot with. Its retro design and build quality also make it the most desirable compact camera around.
The ZS100 / TZ100 remains a solid middle ground between premium compact cameras with larger sensors (in this case, a 1-inch sensor) and super-zoom models with smartphone-beating reach. Its 10x zoom might now be matched by some smartphones, but in our tests the quality of this camera's lens and image processing produced vibrant, punchy photos with excellent detail. If you're looking to get high-quality images with minimal baked-in processing, then the ZS100 / TZ100 will serve you well and offer a more enjoyable photographic experience than any glass slab.
In many ways, the RX100 VII is still best compact around right now. Its autofocus system, we found, is comfortably ahead of any other pocket camera, tracking moving subjects with great reliability and making clever use of its Face and Eye AF, even in video mode. Video quality is superb, while image quality is also stellar. But all of this comes at a huge price, and for many people that could be a deal-breaker.
Still, we can't avoid including it in this guide, as it's one of the best options around. If your budget allows, then you won't find a more powerful compact than the Mark VII. But if you're happy to sacrifice some of the latest autofocus features and a microphone jack, check out the RX100 VI, which offers most of its performance a little less cash.
If you plan on using your compact camera for travel, you should take a closer look at the lens and its zoom capabilities. You'll find that when it comes to taking travel photos, you'll get a lot more use out of a camera that has impressive zooming capabilities. If you plan on using your camera for street photography or for snapshots of people, a fixed lens might just be better for you. For shooting night-time photos, look for one with high ISO capabilities and great noise handling.
Real-world tests are the most revealing way to understand the best compact cameras' performance, quirks, and features. So, along with standardized tests for factors like ISO performance, we take every camera we test for a spin to see how it fares in real-world scenarios.
The best compact cameras are perfect 'second' cameras for DSLR or mirrorless owners who want to travel light now and again. They give little away in features or image quality, but they are small enough to slip into a jacket pocket. These are the ones we rate the highest.
Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com\n\n"}; var triggerHydrate = function() window.sliceComponents.authorBio.hydrate(data, componentContainer); var triggerScriptLoadThenHydrate = function() if (window.sliceComponents.authorBio === undefined) var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = ' -9-5/authorBio.js'; script.async = true; script.id = 'vanilla-slice-authorBio-component-script'; script.onload = () => window.sliceComponents.authorBio = authorBio; triggerHydrate(); ; document.head.append(script); else triggerHydrate(); if (window.lazyObserveElement) window.lazyObserveElement(componentContainer, triggerScriptLoadThenHydrate, 1500); else console.log('Could not lazy load slice JS for authorBio') } }).catch(err => console.log('Hydration Script has failed for authorBio Slice', err)); }).catch(err => console.log('Externals script failed to load', err));Rod LawtonSocial Links NavigationContributorRod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com (opens in new tab) but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com (opens in new tab)
The Sony ZV-1 has been specifically designed to be an excellent compact camera for vlogging and video recording, and thanks to a 1-inch sensor, a high quality lens, and some video friendly features, it delivers the goods.
Overall, the Sony RX100 VII is a helluva lot of pocket camera squeezed into something the size of a deck of playing cards. The zoom range is astounding, auto-focus performance mind-boggling, and frame rate is something that none of the other best compact cameras on this list can match.
A few years ago I tried a previous generation of this camera. I was quite impressed by the image quality coming out of this little compact but the sluggish auto-focus annoyed me a bit too much to invest in it. The Ricoh GRIII Ricoh is much improved and things are much snappier.
If you're looking to jump from your smartphone camera to a dedicated camera, getting a compact camera (also known as a point-and-shoot) is a logical step. Compact cameras are typically small and lightweight, often pocketable, but without the complexity of an interchangeable lens, so you can focus on pointing and shooting. Despite their small size, they still offer superior image quality to most smartphone cameras, as well as features like optical zoom and image stabilization, making them a great choice for travel photography or vlogging.
Most of our picks here are higher-end point-and-shoots. Cheaper options typically aren't worth the investment over simply using a smartphone, which most people typically already own. If you're an enthusiast who needs a compact camera to shoot with on the side, or you like the idea of a dedicated all-in-one camera, there are plenty of premium options to choose from, and we've included a budget pick as well to round out the list.
We've bought and tested over 80 cameras in our lab, and below you'll find our recommendations for the best digital compact cameras to buy. If you want something relatively compact with an interchangeable lens, try the best mirrorless cameras for travel or the best mirrorless cameras in general, which tend to be more portable than traditional DSLR options. Alternatively, if you're looking for a small camera to vlog with, you can also take a look at the best cameras for vlogging.
The Fujifilm X100V is pretty much the gold standard for premium compact cameras, so it's no wonder stock is hard to find these days. Even if you manage to find one, viral demand has caused prices to surge in the US. Still, it's a beautifully designed camera, worthy of its place at the top of this list. Taking inspiration from rangefinder SLR cameras of the past, it comes with dedicated exposure dials and an offset hybrid viewfinder with amazing functionality. You can toggle between using it as an optical viewfinder, giving you a direct view of your subject and its surroundings, and an electronic one, which lets you preview exposure settings and picture profiles in real time.
The camera's built-in lens is sharp and fast thanks to a fairly wide f/2 aperture, and its 35mm-equivalent focal length is versatile enough for a range of photography styles. Inside, the camera has an excellent APS-C sensor that delivers amazing overall image quality. That said, this isn't the most compact of compact cameras. If you want a truly pocketable camera that still delivers high-quality images, check out the RICOH GR III. It also uses an APS-C sensor but leaves out a viewfinder and other bells and whistles for a pared-down but super portable camera that's perfect for street photography.
This camera uses a smaller one-inch sensor than the X100V, so image quality isn't quite as impressive, but it's still a lot better than most compact cameras and smartphones. Battery life also leaves a lot to be desired, but that's a problem with compact cameras as a whole. On the upside, it has a versatile zoom lens that gives you more flexibility with framing than the prime lens on the Fuji. While it isn't cheap, the RX100 VII is one of the best compact zoom cameras you can get, thanks to its sheer portability-to-performance ratio. 041b061a72