Digital Camera Reviews: Choose the Best Compact Camera

Our Tests

Image quality is of course the main criteria on which to judge a camera. To evaluate this, we try out all cameras on our test scenes, under controlled lighting, with and without flash at all the various sensitivities. This allows us to evaluate image quality in the best conditions and also see how it changes under less favourable conditions. The Barbie also allows us to test exposure to flash and colour quality for portraits as well as stabilization, tested over long bursts to find out what the limit is for getting an image that is regularly sharp. Our Face-Off is based on these lab tests.

Of course it also includes trials under real conditions: we use the cameras on a daily basis for several days to get a more thorough feel for speed, comfort and design and build. The final rating is an averaging out of all these parameters: image quality, handling, daily use, size, weight, battery life and so on. The test is there to give you as much detail as possible and a three or four star camera may well be exactly what you need depending on the factors that are important for you.

Which camera is right for you? You can either read our full selection of tests (compact cameras here, with bridge cameras and SLRs in their own dedicated surveys), or get straight to business, with our round-up of the best cameras currently available.

The quality of compact digital cameras is still progressing. A wide-angle lens is now pretty much a given for all mid and top range models and screens are regularly larger than 3 inches. There are however, still notable differences in other areas:

Speed: this is no longer simply a question of how old the camera is. Some are very rapid on start-up and focus while others are not at all so. The really slow camera has more or less disappeared however and it is rare to wait more than two seconds at start-up or between two photos. Autofocus usually takes under a second. Note that some models now have continuous autofocus and this means that there is less latency when you shoot. Autofocus time is still a weak point on compacts however.

Lens quality: a good lens is expensive. There's no such thing as a free lunch, even though some entry level Panasonics and Canons do give surprisingly good results. Some lenses are not as well put together as they could be and others fail to capture fine detail on the edge of the frame.

Sensitivity: there has been a remarkable jump forward over the course of the last twelve months from all manufacturers. However, differences do persist. Fujifilm is still leading the pack with its Super CCDs but these are unfortunately only available with some cameras in the F and S ranges: they allow you to go for 800 ISO without a second thought. Canon is catching up, as are Sony and Panasonic. Even makes like Ricoh, Pentax, Nikon or Samsung now give acceptable results at 400 ISO.

Resolution: at the risk of repeating ourselves, just who really needs 15 Megapixels on a compact? With a maximum resolution of 300 dpi currently the print standard, 15 Megapixels make your print 30x40 cm, or the size of an A3 sheet! Experience shows that 95% of users never print larger than A4 and that onscreen viewing, even with radical resizing, doesn't require this amount of detail for everyday use of photos. 10 Megapixels is now the common standard on entry level models and is largely sufficient for the vast majority of users.

Our Camera Reviews

To compare different models, you can always rely on our Product Face-Off, which includes test results and sample shots from all of the cameras we've ever tested. Note, however, that our testing procedures changed again at the end of 2009 to keep up with technological developments.

In our tests, we always include samples of the results at different ISOs, with full-size images of photos taken from the lowest to the highest sensitivities. You need to get used to them to judge them properly: some very high-res cameras show noise rapidly but the faults are lost in the final image. Nevertheless, this is a good indication of what you can expect from any resizing and the intrinsic image processing capabilities of the camera.

This section of the site is filling up fast because the manufacturers keep on producing ever-more specialised cameras to fill even the tiniest niches in the market. The filters below can help you sort the cameras by final score, date or price to eliminate those that don't interest you.

See Also

> Buyer's Guide: Digital Cameras

> Archive: Compact Digital Cameras 2008-09

> Archive: Compact Digital Cameras 2007-08