My requirements for a compact camera for fun and creative point-and-shoot photography in 2025.
The Purpose
- Point-and-shoot daytime and nighttime street photography of people, buildings and city atmosphere for social media or print.
- Low key creative portraits and self-portraits outside at interesting places and scenery for social media.
- Snapshot documentation photography.
The Challenges
These requirements are really not that much to ask for, when thinking of the amount of optical and computing technology, that have been put into modern cameras. However, despite of this, the engineers of many cameras, even very expensive ones, still fail to meet basic requirements.
- The vast amount of settings in modern cameras can take too much time to dial in, if the menu system is not intuitive and well organized.
- Modern cameras can have a combination of sensor and processor, that surpricingly create less sharp and color accurate pictures.
- Modern self-portrait features with automatic re-focus and interval shooting is surprincly not a feature in any camera. Canon is known to cripple users by removing fundamental features like this.
- Operating in low light conditions, such as here in Scandinavia, where users struggle with horrible contrast, blurry images and low image quality, because of poor performance from modern sensors and processors, that is so bad, that not even a professional lens can compensate for it. Hello, Canon!
- Looking through impressive mega-pixel specifications and viral marketing for modern and expensive cameras, that actually perform worse than decades old cameras, such as the Canon IXUS 65 from 2006 and the Canon EOS D30 from 2001 with a nifty-fifty 50mm f/1.8.
Handling Requirements
- The camera must be compact and light-weight, so it can be stored in a pocket, small bag or polstered bike frame cycle bag and used for fun and in-the-moment creative or documenting snapshots.
- The compact size and design should make it appear non-intrusive, so people will not notice it and act naturally. Its design might even make people want to act and have fun while shooting.
- Quick start-up and shooting with automatic settings to ensure, that one-time scenes are captured.
Release Requirements
- The camera must have a self-timer, that can release the shutter automatically after at least 10 seconds, while the subject walks from behind the camera to the front of the camera.
- The camera should have interval shooting, so it can shoot a series of images automatically, while the subject is given at least 5 seconds to re-compose, before each shot. This is different from burst shooting.
Focus Requirements
- When using the self-timer and interval shooting, the camera must be able to re-focus on eyes or subject at the time of shutter release. Not when the button is pressed.
- The camera should support fixed focus to operate fast in low light scenes.
Optical Requirements
- The images should retain a natural and pleasing look of face, body and background. If the lens is too wide, and thus the distance too short, the nose might appear overly large in relation to the head and body. If the lens is too narrow, and thus the distance too long, the nose and face might appear too small in relation to the head and body. This means, that the focal length should be around the 35 mm full frame equivalent. It can be lower for a more modern and creative street photography look.
- The camera might have built-in filters, or support external filters, such as diffusion and polarization filters.
Sensor Requirements
- The performance of the sensor must be so good, that it can operate in low light scenes and conditions, such as classic cloudy and grey days in Scandinavia without the user struggling with low quality images. This is actually a problem with many cameras, including very expensive cameras, such as Canon DSLR cameras with L-series lenses.
Processor Requirements
- The camera must support creative custom color profile recipes, that can be installed or entered manually. Not just monochrome or color tints, but fun, expressive and creative charactistic looks, such as filmic color profiles.
- The user should be able to take and review an image in-camera and apply different recipes, before transferring it to a smartphone and sharing it on social media.
Privacy Requirements
- The camera should be able to optionally clear traceable metadata, such as body serial number, geographic location and owner name, from images, that are shared on social media.
- The camera should have some kind of theft prevention, that either helps the user get the camera back or at least clear the pictures and render the camera useless.
Candidates?
- Ricoh GR IIIX. 26,3mm (40mm) f/2.8. 11,3 x 6,4 x 3,3 cm. 262 g. Does not have privacy features. 8.250 DKK.
- Ricoh GR IIIX HDF. 26,3mm (40mm) f/2.8. 11,3 x 6,4 x 3,3 cm. 262 g. Does not have privacy features. 8.995 DKK.
- Fujifilm X100VI. 23mm (35mm) f/2. 12,8 x 7,4 x 5,5 cm. 521 g. Does not have privacy features. 13.790 DKK.
Compact DSLR Alternatives?
There are smaller and light-weight compact DSLR cameras, that could be an alternative to a compact camera. Benefits of these are more control of exposure, lens options, flash options and wider applications. The camera might be performing better in more different situations, but can be more expensive, less convenient and more intrusive.
- Canon EOS 250D with Canon EF-S 24mm F/2.8 STM (39mm f/4.5) and Canon EF-S 50mm F/1.8 STM (81mm f/2.8). 622 g. Does not fit into a bike frame bag nor a pocket, but does fit into a sling bag. Does not have interval shooting, but does have remote control. Does not have privacy features. 7.995 DKK.
- Sony A7C II with Sony FE 40mm F2.5 G. 12,4 x 7,1 x 11,5 cm. 634 g. Does not fit into a bike frame bag nor a pocket, but does fit into a sling bag. Does not have privacy features? 20.645 DKK.
