Compact camera recommendations

Have decided I don't really like compacts anymore. But it'll do for work. Found it very, very odd trying to frame things.

sorely tempted by the X1

:(

just held a canon s90, wow that seems like a fun camera.

the samsung ex1/tl500 sounds like a very tasty camera. 24mm f/1.8 lens

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sam-ex1.shtml

I have the samsung TL225 which is the one with the screen in front and back of camera. great for photographing kids because they get mesmerized by their own image. also you can choose 'kid mode' which will show a creepy clown if youre looking to get pics of your kid in a state of hysterical fear induced sobbing

Just got a Fujifilm X100T. Couple of test shots:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8660/15956699220_3548f8f56e_z.jpgDSCF0020 by disbister, on Flickr

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8651/15956562278_6a3814c224_z.jpgDSCF0041 by disbister, on Flickr

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8600/16143252932_e007d4d809_z.jpgDSCF0034 by disbister, on Flickr

Loving the size and ability to shoot in low-light. My old Pentax had problems in low-light, and was only 6MP, so I couldn't really crop anything...

I got a DSLR years ago which I really enjoyed and thought would be great for kids, but now that I have kids I HATE lugging it around and only really leave the smallest prime lens on it. I think I'm going for an original X100 to see how I like it. The other option would be something like the RX100 which is maybe too small.

Glad you revived this - I've been thinking a lot about plunking down for something up-to-date in this department. I bought a Canon G15 while scrambling to get ready for a trip a few years ago, but I've never warmed up to the darn thing. I like that it gives me the range of control of an SLR (shooting RAW, moving between Av/Tv/M, easy access to self-timer and stuff like that), but sometimes it's a little too much fiddling, undermining the value of a real quickie point-and-shoot, not to mention that it's just bulky enough to not really be something I keep in my jacket pocket on the regular (though at least I can keep it in my everyday backpack). It also seems like it's out of date in ways that matter - the dinky 1/1.7 sensor, which I guess was not even great at the time, just doesn't deliver the fine detail. In particular night shots really don't look good at all, which is a problem since half the reason for me to have a compact camera is for fun/socializing shots while out on the town and not packing the big 5Dii. In a way, I just really miss the simplicity and reliability of the various film-type Canon Styluses I had in the early 2000s, which, assuming I was packing fast enough film, pretty much always gave a photo I loved with no fuss.

I'm really really drawn to aesthetics/look/feel of the X100 line but I worry that I'd be getting snookered into a high price tag by these kind of irrational factors. On the other hand, a camera I love is a camera I'm likely to shoot with. On the other other hand, maybe I should be giving a closer look to the Sony and Panasonic offerings, even if the sleek modern-day tech-product look isn't really my thing. I think the only thing I'm certain about is that I want to shoot through a viewfinder, not peering awkwardly at a screen on the back. Help?

cameras are so good these days, just spin a wheel

I love my little Fuji X-M1. Yes, the glass for it isn't cheap (I got a very good bundle deal that included the 27mm pancake prime and basic 16-50mm zoom but eventually shelled out for the 35/1.4) and I miss having an eye-level viewfinder, but it's so small and light and I take it everywhere. My rationale for getting the (joint-)cheapest Fuji was that, seeing as I couldn't stretch to the X-T1 with its amazing EVF, I should just do without entirely and have a different photo experience.

It's not great for events where autofocus needs to be super-quick but the quality is astoundingly good. Also, it's the runt of the litter - no longer in production and very few firmware updates - so can now be found, secondhand, body-only, in proper camera stores in the UK for around £120. When you consider what sort of secondhand DSLR that money gets you - something from 2006-08, maybe, low-res screen, crap over ISO800, no video, certainly no wifi - that's amazing value.

(Having said all that, it's precisely a pair of 10yo Canon DSLRs that I've got the girls for Xmas...)

hmmm. does anyone who's used both have opinions on point-and-shoot compact versus interchangeable lens compact? i've never really used the latter - interested in how they stack up in terms of weight/convenience. for myself, i'd be thinking of something i'd keep one lens on at all times, for simplicity / "always at the ready" reasons versus my SLR.

xxxpost: the earlier x100 and x100s are much cheaper used $350 to $600. Also, their out of camera jpegs are supposed to be amazing which I'm interested in because I never shoot RAW anyway.

I'm in the same boat with the 5DII which I love using, but hate carrying, storing, etc etc. I thought about switching to the 6D which is somewhat smaller and lighter, but I still think these big cameras are just rarely appropriate unless you're a professional.

I actually went to a camera store to get a sense of the sizes of these. The RX100 was really really small - like, too small and seemed fragile when using the popup viewfinder (using the viewfinder seemed silly). The Fuji was a little bigger than I was expecting which was actually a plus. That said the X100 is a jacket pocket camera and the sony is truly pocketable and performs almost as well except in certain conditions (but then I always have my iPhone for a good portion of those conditions).

I think the X100 having a single focal length is an advantage at this point in my life.

cameras are so good these days, just spin a wheel

Also agree with this. In fact, for 90% of people, a modern phone camera is the best option.

I definitely would not give up my 5D - full-frame sensor, solid optics, really easy to futz with the controls just spinning dials around with the thumb without looking away - but yeah, I hear you on all that. Maybe an earlier x100 model makes sense for my pocket-ish cam.

If you go for the original, beware of something called "SAB" which might affect some early serial #s (google it). X100S doesn't seem to have the problem.

As for the 5DII, I love it, but I'd be perfectly happy giving it up if the X100 performs as well as some say and I don't miss anything.

Go for an X100s over the X100 - the improvements to usability (viewfinder, speed, AF) are immense. Sensor difference is negligible IMO but the S was loads easier to deal with.

Buy a cheap thumb grip off Ebay or Amazon plus the off brand (JVC? I think) filter ring/hood combo. Thumb grip doesn't add any size but makes holding the body much more stable. The cheap filter ring/hood lets you either use filters (I don't) but more importantly add just a couple of MM of space between the front lens element and the world.

There are a couple of projects in my mind that I'd like a high-megapixel full frame for (to use like I would a 4x5 or MF SLR, giant prints) but it's not something I can realistically pursue and the high-MP cameras are still ungodly expensive.

One thing I love about the smaller mirrorless cameras these days is AF accuracy - it's maybe not blazingly fast but there are no front/back-focus issues (or worries that you're making the issues up in your head) with an X camera.

Agree about AF accuracy. With the 50/1.4 on my Canon, it's a bit of a lottery - esp when the subject is more than a couple of metres away and I'm shooting fairly wide open in low light. Maybe 60% of images are truly sharp (much better hit-rate for closer subjects). I end up pixel-peeping and fiddling fruitlessly with in-body microadjustment. The L lenses are better (my 135 rarely misses). But the Fuji, *when it can focus* (and often I get a red box in difficult conditions - again, the centre-point AF on the 6D is the king here), is dead on every time. If you get a green box you know it's perfect.

I think the higher-end Fujis have a proportion of phase-detect pixels too, enabling better tracking.

Milo, the X100 was given a final firmware update in late 2013 after being discontinued that increased focus speed by 20%, added focus peaking etc. Also the sensor is different and some people prefer it to the later versions (JPG NR for skin at higher ISOs is bad) . That said, I'm still debating which one to get.

I also have the 50/1.4 which drove me crazy til I set only center-point on P mode. I'm also at about 60% for truly sharp photos. They look dreamy at small sizes though.

Whew, good to know it's not just me with the AF issues on the Canon! Does drive me nuts sometimes. I usually just say to myself, well, that's why you were taught to focus a camera manually in the first place. (Though, god, you could never get me to go back to the bizarre ''line up the circles'' ground-glass deal.)

The 50/1.4 seems notorious in this regard. When I use it I tend to shoot two or three frames on the same scene wherever I can.

I had a little look through my Lr catalog for a particularly egregious example of this... This is Green Park during the summer, an f/2.0 shot of a bench maybe twenty feet away (another thing the 50/1.4 doesn't appear to do is write subject distance into EXIF data):

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5642/22891882980_4970b3897c_c.jpg

Detail:

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5802/22559181534_95aaf0b66a_c.jpg

It has pretty much focused on thin air in the lower image.

Are those really both 2.0? I like the blurrier one better at least in this thread.

Yeah - I mean, I normally wouldn't take shots like that with shallow DoF, but I knew that it was the kind of scene where the lens would struggle - into the light, subject several metres away - and sure enough, it focused on nothing in the second pic (the focus point was over the guy on the bench). Literally everything is soft. But it does look nice as a detail, you're right - almost like I meant it.

Even the bench colouring has changed, I guess due to there being some purple fringing on the first pic, which I eliminated, and then pasted those adjustments onto the second pic (where there wasn't any such fringing as it was all OOF).

Dithering about this again. Basically, to recap, my frustrations with the G15 have been the 1/1.7" sensor, the bulkiness that keeps it out of my jacket pocket, and the time I spend futzing with buttons and menus because I don't quite trust the auto modes. I DEFINITELY want something with a viewfinder though and this seems to really limit the choices.

Being finicky about not wanting to get saddled again with a dinky sensor brings it down, seemingly, to the Lumix LX100 ($700) and the Leica D-Lux ($1100), both with 24-75 mm zooms and 4/3 sensors... and then the X100T (also $1100) with a fixed lens and an APS-C sensor. The X100 is also the only one with a built-in flash, though tbh I really don't use flash very much at all - and a camera that really can perform in low light would more or less obviate all but fill-flash needs. Meanwhile I feel like I probably would in fact use the zoom enough for the X100 to be a bad choice for me - - - but maybe if I really want to get back to having a simple, effective pocket-cam that's fine? Boy am I a sucker for the aesthetics of the X100. Ugh...

Or am I going about this all wrong? Could I step down to a 1" sensor and still get nice results with night shots and stuff? Are there such cameras with viewfinders anyway? This is the main thing holding me up right now so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I might also consider something like the Sony RX100 III (1" sensor, $750) with the pop-up viewfinder - the smallest and lightest of any of these - but the pop-up does seem potentially awkward. Aghghghghghgh.

The latest 1" sensors are quite decent. Will you be printing much?

The RX100 series is tough to beat as a complete, pocketable package. The Lumix LX100 is really great, and the beefier body handles well, but I'm not sure that the extra stop or so of high ISO capability is worth the increase in size.

The Lumix GM5 might work for you. The 12-32mm zoom and 14mm pancake prime are tiny, besides other gems like the Olympus 45mm that fit in a spare pocket. I read it's just been discontinued. There are some great deals around.

Size comparison: http://j.mp/1k1fdhW

Do you really need the zoom? I think the 35mm equiv on the X100 series is perfect for most amateur/casual/whatever photography - friends and events and so on, documenting travel. It encourages you to get in close and it's not the end of the world if you find yourself cropping a bit to a 50mm perspective. Everything else about the X100T is top shelf IMO - the EVF is excellent, as is the optical viewfinder, AF is fast, menus are good, the Fuji JPG profiles beat anything anything I can do in RAW with color (B&W is different but the Fuji is good there too).

<3 my x100, no regret at all

These are great posts, thanks everyone. Glad to know the 1" sensors hold up. I basically don't print anything these days but I always say I'm going to pick up the habit again, cause I do love having physical albums to flip through and stuff.

I probably don't really need the zoom. My nostalgia is for a fixed-length, film-type Olympus Stylus - god what a great camera that was - and yeah, can always crop when you have a high quality image. By the same token, I don't really see myself ever buying additional lenses for an intechangeable-lens, or making any use of a hot shoe, so I worry that I'm adding bulk or cost unnecessarily - though yeah, $400 for the DMC-GM5 with kit lens is pretty appealing.

That size comparison site is great... How portable/pocketable do y'all find the X100T in practice? It's bigger and heavier than my current "keep it in my backpack just in case" camera, so it could just take up that role - but something I could actually keep in a pocket would be really nice for social photos and things, I think. Things were simplest as a college freshman when I still was willing to be seen wearing cargo pants. Those days being gone, I'm starting to feel like I'm in denial trying to convince myself I won't ultimately regret buying anything much bigger than the RX100 (III, but maybe II - review/comparisons I've read suggest the difference isn't big enough to justify the price difference). I'm gonna go to the store tomorrow and see how these things feel in my hands though.

Only thing I think I've definitely ruled out though is the Leica D-LUX 109. As far as I've been able to tell, it's just overwhelmingly similar to the DMC-LX100 (which is $400 cheaper), except the Leica usually comes bundled with Lightroom, which I already have. So...no. I was also looking at the Canon G7X for a second but then realized it doesn't have a viewfinder?!?! so I cut that from the list easy. Camera shopping is so complicated! Feel like I could easily get almost to the checkout counter and realize I've totally forgotten to check whether the thing I'm buying can shoot RAW, or whatever.

it doesn't fit in any of my pockets :-(

I totally forgot that the GM5 has a viewfinder! It's so tiny. When Pam was looking at cameras we briefly considered its predecessor (GM1) but it seemed almost too small to navigate. Also, the 20/1.7 prime actually stuck out at the bottom - you needed the extra grip to make it flush. I guess that's still the case with the GM5. I don't think the smaller-form 14/2.5 was available then.

I guess if you have it set up the way you want (aperture priority, f-stop on thumb-wheel, auto-ISO, fast prime), you never have to fiddle with tiny buttons anyway, so it becomes an ideal pocket cam.

But, as you know, you get an interchangeable-lens camera, you WILL end up with more than one lens. It's inevitable ;) Sigma do some affordable primes for micro-4/3rds, at 19/30/60mm.

The X100T is definitely backpackable but not pocketable. It's light but the overall size is similar to a film rangefinder with small lens.

The Ricoh GR II might be a good option - bigger sensor, no viewfinder but you can get aftermarket options I think. I had an older GR when they used smaller sensors and even that one was nice (until it was lost with some luggage).

Hmmm, looking at that one... don't think I can seriously see myself doing anything where you have to clip on a viewfinder though - defeats the pocketability/ready-to-go-ness I fear. Thanks for the tip, though.

I think I have it down to this:

GMC-DM5 ($400, 4/3) - by far the best price/size for seeing how I feel about an interchangeable-lens cam
RX100 II ($500, 1") - for size, weight, and flash when you need it - most portable of these and seemingly best in its class*
LX100 ($700, 4/3) - "halfway" b/w the RX100 and X100T, bigger sensor and more features than the former, plus zoom
X100T ($1100, APS-C) - serious enthusiast mode, big beautiful camera everyone raves about, no consumer-friendly frills like flash or zoom

* - seems like the differences with the RX100 III and IV aren't big enough to justify the price leap - III gains a full stop at max zoom but...

Kind of a wild range of types of cameras and price (and used prices for some of these do change the picture a lot - now seeing X100Ts at $920)... but since I'm trying to compromise around a few ineffable factors maybe that's what I need to do. Gonna head to the store today and at least try 'em out, maybe make a purchase! Thanks again everybody.

X100T has a really great flash! No zoom though.

why not get an x100s or x100? much cheaper.

I have an X10 because the X100 was too expensive at the time. I appreciate it more than I did when I bought it, but the lack of a real viewfinder and bulkiness are down points. I think it's a rung or so below what you're looking at here, though.

haha oops yeah, i had so many inky scribbles on my page that point that I got mixed up (re: X100T and flash).

So! Here's how it went down:

GMC-DM5 ($400, 4/3): Glad I looked at this, but didn't seem like it really made sense; with the lens on, it fits so awkwardly in a jacket pocket that the advantage of the tiny footprint fades away and the disadvantages (thumb/button size ratio, limited controls) loom large.

RX100 II ($500, 1"): Realized only the III actually had the viewfinder - oops. So, looked at the III ($750). Thought the overall feel was pretty good! Size is great obviously. However, I didn't realize how finicky the pop-up viewfinder actually is - you have to pull down a little switch to pop it up, and then grab its front element between thumb and forefinger and pull it towards you 1/8" to 1/4" til it clicks, at which point it actually works. It's possible I could get used to that, but then on top of it - and maybe it was the display model being a little loose or worn out - but I found that even in just taking a few shots around the counter, my glasses would bonk into the viewfinder enough to push it back in and thus turn it off. What a pain! Just couldn't imagine that ever being pleasant or natural, in the "camera as an extension of my hands and eyes" kind of way.

LX100 ($700, 4/3): Just got nowhere with this. The zoom lens makes it quite bulky, but I thought it generally just had surprisingly bad feel, particularly in handling the aperture ring and the other dials and controls. Nothing I could really describe to you now and maybe I would have eventually gotten used to it, but it just didn't seem to naturally "work," if that makes sense.

So that left the X100T, which I loved from the moment I picked it up. The greater size and weight are obvious negatives for my "pocket cam" goals - but even if it remained a "bag cam" it just seemed obvious that I would enjoy shooting with it more than my current bag cam, and get photos I liked better out of the process. While I thought I was being seduced only by the aesthetics, it turns out it was also by the design - the dials and controls are all nearly exactly where I'd put them and I can just see myself, after I have all the custom settings worked out, being able to point-and-shoot with it. However... by the time I got back to the used counter where I'd been checking it out to see how it did with pockets (inside jacket pocket actually a passable fit!), the used one had actually already sold online. At this point, the gentleman behind the counter thought to do a search and found that he had an X100S in the back (which I swear they didn't have when I was searching yesterday) - sold for $600 plus memory card, tax, etc. Considering what I was considering as an uppermost price point when I walked in the door, it feels like a steal - not much more than i paid for the utilitarian and tiny-sensored G15 two years ago.

Savored the manual on the way home, have the battery charging now. I'll be shooting with it on this next trip down south, so will report back on results. Thanks to everyone on this thread for really thoughtful responses - feeling much better about this purchase than I would have otherwise.

Hurrah! Welcome to the Fujifamily. One of us, etc

good deal :-)

an annoyance: they included the strap, but no triangular clips or the clip-on device! so it goes with used. will just have to grab them at the first camera shop i encounter on my trip i guess.

With the money you saved buying the S instead of the T, you can buy the tele and wide lenses

yikes, no thanks! desperately avoiding carrying around any extra items, and AFAICT the teleconverter brings the lens up from a 35mm equivalent to a ... 50mm equivalent, which isn't really all that exciting right? like would the results be meaningfully different (in most situations) from just cropping the regular image? i say this as someone who lived for a long long time on my first film SLRs with only a 50mm normal lens (and was probably a better photographer for it) (though i did find it a bit cramped), while having a ball with the original olympus stylus's 35mm lens...

My all-time strap recommendation: http://www.streetstrap.com/
Amazon has them - sort of pricey but worth it.

I know Schwantz has posted on another thread about X100T battery life. Is there a way to configure it (like the X-T1/T10, I believe) so that the LCD is always off (except for image review) and the EVF only powers up when your eye is up to it? That's always going to be the problem with mirrorless - the batteries are physically smaller and there's continuous drain if you're using the LCD to compose.

I Instagrammed a snap of the menu display on my 6D a few months back - I'd done a couple of events back to back on a single charge and the shutter count was up to 1800+, with battery level finally down into single figures. DSLRs aren't going anywhere as long as they have that advantage.

Does the View Mode button not control that? On the X100S it cycles you between LCD, LCD-until-you-hold-it-up-to-your-eye, and EVF-only, though I keep bumping it accidentally and I need to look in the manual and see if there's a simple way of locking that setting...

Yeah, it does have eye sensor mode. In any case, the battery life is still not great. OTOH, you can get batteries on Amazon for like $10, and they are pretty small. Easy to carry an extra. Or, you can use one of those portable phone chargers to charge the camera via USB.

I get about 300-330 shots (with the 35/1.4 attached; maybe more with the pancake and kit zoom) with the original battery; my two third-party batteries top out at about 230 and never give any indication that they're about to die (straight from three bars to flashing red).

Don't think it's possible to charge the battery in camera (on my model at least), but, yeah, there are universal Li-Ion / NiMH chargers that will run off USB / 12V car socket / etc.

another vote for x100t if you don't need to zoom. It fits in a jacket pocket (ymmv) as far as I'm concerned but it's also small and light so you don't mind carrying it at chest level all day. I'm a heavy Canon MK3 user so I don't mind carrying SOMETHING but I don't always want to carry the big mama

I also think the 100-series will have a long practical life, for lack of a better word. Metal body; solid construction; wears well. I'm an every-other-generation buyer so I worry about things like a panasonic whatsit that is made of blue plastic and has a sliding shield door for the lens and so on

Still getting my bearings with the X100S. I think I like a lot of things about it, but one thing has been really frustrating - the playback image (like, the "just taken" photo) in the electronic viewfinder always has just crazily hideous and incorrect white balance and exposure. Like, if you look at the same image on the back screen it's a lovely frame, in the EVF it looks blown-out, washed-out, and often very different in color temperature. Kinda defeats the whole purpose! If I'm trying to shoot a candid or something, I don't really want to be pulling the camera away from my face, checking the screen, bringing it back up... plus I don't want to have to go through so many extra exposures to save just the good ones later. Is this normal for this camera, or do I have a glitchy one or something?

Perhaps related - the brightness of the digital display elements in the EVF will often kind of 'flicker' or cycle between brightnesses if I'm doing something like wheeling through different ISO settings. Very distracting...

Finally, sometimes for no reason I can perceive, I only have the choice of a few ISOs but maybe that's me getting into some mode I don't mean to be in or something...

The EVF will flicker in certain circumstances, like the refresh rate is too low - I encounter it with very long shutter times (which would be inappropriate for using the viewfinder anyway, most likely).

No idea on the white balance issue and ISOs, I haven't encountered that with the 100/S/T so I'd bet on settings issues (unless the former is a problem, which might be the case).