Choosing a digital compact camera
As someone who occasionally dabbles in photography, I am frequently asked “I have £XXX to spend, and want to buy a digital camera. What should I buy?”. It’s a difficult question, especially because I’ve been known to spend high sums of money on digital photographic equipment, and I haven’t actually kept myself up to date with what’s stirring in the world of digital.
I am able to offer a few pointers, of course…
Throughout the years, I’ve owned a series of different cameras – a Casio QV-2000 got me started, before I graduated to a Kodak DC-4800, a Canon Powershot Pro 90 IS. From there on I bought my first digital SLR, but kept a Canon A300 (the cheapest Canon compact available at the time), and later an Olympus C1 and currently a Canon S500 (Digital Elph / Ixus) as backup / pocket cameras. These are just the cameras I’ve personally owned – in addition I’ve tested dozens of cameras, mostly from back in the day when I was the editor of Digitalkamera.no, but also from playing around with scores of other cameras.
Lessons I have learned from playing around with all of these cameras are many and varied, but the main ones are quite similar to the tips Andy offers in Choosing a digital compact camera over on his Lost Outpost blog…
Tips to buying a digital camera
1) Find out how much you wish to spend
2) Pick a brand you like (see below for more on this)
3) Find the digital compact camera whose price tag is closest to the figure decided in #1, built by the brand decided in #2
4) Read the review of the camera chosen in #3 on Digital Photo Review
5) Use Froogle or other price comparison sites to find the cheapest place to buy the camera.
See how easy that was?
Choosing a decent camera brand
As you can probably tell from the list of cameras I’ve owned, I’m a bit of a Canon-head myself, but I would never recommend against buying a Nikon – or, in fact, any other digital camera from a camera manufacturer.
This is important, however: Camera manufacturer. That means that the following manufacturers are likely to build excellent digital cameras that I could warmly recommend:
- Canon
- Contax
- Konica Minolta
- Leica
- Nikon
- Olympus
- Pentax
Notice something? Well, a lot of big digital camera manufacturers are missing from that list. This is with good reason, however: Personally, I find it difficult to trust people who make digital cameras “on the side” – why buy an Agfa, Casio or Hewlett Packard camera, when you can buy a Canon or a Nikon for similar prices – and the latter two actually have a reputation and the vast experience needed to build good cameras?
Most controversially, Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic are missing off the above list. Why? Basically, they are general electronics manufacturers, and I don’t trust them to build cameras that are up to a standard I’d be happy with at a price I’d be willing to pay for them: If you can afford one of these, you can also afford one of the ones in the list above, and that would be a safer bet. Besides, as Andy mentions in his article above, the Sony Memory stick system is icky, proprietary lark, while we have perfectly usable compact flash, SD, and other memory card systems around that could be used instead.
There are no bad cameras anymore…
The most important thing to realise is that most digital cameras are now good. As long as you pick a decent brand, there are no truly bad digital compacts out there anymore (unlike, say, 1998, when I bought my first digital compact), so a choice you make will never be a completely horrendous choice. Especially as you are starting out, you are unlikely to know the difference anyway – and you are certainly going to pick up a lot of tricks along the way, which will help you make a more educated choice for your next camera. And the one after that…
Good luck!
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Insights, suggestions and comments
I just wanted to point out that your inclusion of Leica’s digital cameras is an implicit inclusion of Panasonic, who manufactures them. Same deal with Sony and Konica/Minolta, after last month.
Though I agree that the Sony Memsticck is a piece of rubbish.
in terms of people first starting out with digital photography, I tend to send them directly to DPReview’s Features Search. I think it’s also worth emphasizing the fact that people should consider what they’d like to use the camera for before buying one. For example, the Macro (flower) feature is common but not standard and a person interested in macro photography might feel disappointed after realizing that their camera lacks this functionality.
In defense of companies like Sony and Panasonic (though I have no real reason to go to bat for either of them), strategic partnerships demonstrate that they know they don’t have all the solutions. For example, Panasonic’s deal with Leica lenses and Sony with Carl Zeiss. Similarly, Sony and Minolta will be working on DSLRs as a team. Results should be interesting.
Good advice in general, and I heartily second your distaste for cameras by companies that specialize in something else, like hp or Casio. But a small nitpick: Agfa was making cameras back in the 50’s. I don’t know that I’d consider them a newcomer to the camera market. Of course, with that said, I agree that I wouldn’t feel as confident about one of their cameras over something from Canon, Nikon, etc.
Awesome, thanks for the linkage. Glad you found my blog post useful!
I believe Konica Minolta have recently left the camera business, and Sony are handling their warranties and service. So maybe they should be off the list?
Overall I agree, however Leica’s digital compacts are made by Panasonic so why trust one and not the other?
Though panasonic is primarly an electronic company they seem to have a collaboration with Leica. Many panasonic digital cameras are almost identical to their more expensive Leica counterparts. Furter the lenses of most panasonic cameras are made by leica. I would consider panasonic especially in the prosumer category given these facts.
Stunning post. I only wish I could have written it myself.
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