Compact Camera News

It’s the age-old question that typically comes from non-photographers: does an expensive camera shoot better photos? As anyone who knows anything about photography will tell you: it’s the photographer, not the gear that’s the key to great photos!

Ricoh just officially launched the GR III, the latest model in the company’s cult classic compact camera series. The Ricoh GR III is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand or a pants pocket but sports a large, 24.24MP APS-C size CMOS sensor comparable to what you’d find in some DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.

Street photography—walking around with a camera, poised to capture life on the fly—has never been more popular than it is now. Back in the day, masters like Alfred Eisenstaedt and Henri Cartier-Bresson prowled the streets with classic film-based Leica rangefinders, but today most street shooters opt for modern digital cameras.

Superzoom cameras, like Nikon’s Coolpix P1000 ($999.99) are popular because, let’s face it, people who buy entry level DSLR’s rarely, if ever, take the kit lenses off their cameras. I looked for statistics on this and didn’t find any empirical data but friendly retailers in the industry told me this assumption is true.

If you don’t want to haul around you heavy DSLR or mirrorless camera on your next travel shoot (or vacation), a new superzooming compact camera from Sony provides a far smaller and lighter alternative. This week, Sony introduced the Cyber-shot HX99 (model DSC-HX99) camera, which packs a zoom lens with an extreme range of 24-720mm into what Sony is calling “the world’s smallest camera body of its kind.” 

Superzoom cameras are not dead! Canon just introduced the new PowerShot SX70 HS compact digital camera, which features a whopping 65x optical zoom lens (equivalent to 21-1365mm), a 20.3MP CMOS imaging sensor and 4K video capabilities.

We always like it when photographers and other creatives use low-end camera gear to achieve high-end results.