The Compact Camera Quandary
– State of the Market, Mid-2007

Handling issues

Memory card type

A seemingly small, but non-trivial, point. SD is the current memory card standard. Fuji and Olympus with their xD and Sony with its Memory Stick are simply shooting themselves in the foot. Why would I buy a Fuji or Sony then have to buy a new set of cards in a proprietary format that are useless for anything else? Fortunately, market reality is finally beginning to reach the boardroom and proprietary card compacts are beginning to appear with a second slot for SD.

Size, weight, and handling

Fig. 4: Casio EX-S770, a pocket-sized compact

As a general rule, the smaller the camera the more limited its capabilities. The camera we all want will fit into your shirt or pants pocket with hardly a bulge and is called, appropriately enough, a pocket camera or ultra compact. A sterling example of this was the 7 mp Casio Z750, now replaced by a 10 mp model; and of course everyone is familiar by now with Canon's SD/IXUS models.

Fig. 5: Lumix LX2, a jacket-sized compact

Next larger are cameras of roughly the same flat rectangular shape but with a protruding lens housing and/or hand grip, which we might call jacket cams because they are a better fit for a jacket pocket than a shirt pocket. Some examples: the Panasonic LX and parallel Leica D-LUX series, the Ricoh GR and GX series, and the Sigma DP1.

Fig. 6: Canon A570IS, a standard-sized compact

Finally, there is the standard tourist form factor of nearly every other compact camera on the market – fine to throw into a travel bag or purse; will fit in a roomy pocket. Unfortunately, its larger size does not imply a larger sensor.

While size is of the essence, all these cameras weigh so little that under-weight, not over-weight is more the issue. The lighter the camera the less inertia it possesses and therefore the more prone it is to handholding blur.

For handling there is little to choose from. If you have large hands they are all too small for comfort. Nearly all have too few dedicated feature buttons, forcing you to dig into the menu system to set ISO or enable manual focus, for example.

When choosing a compact camera, you first need to decide which form factor you want. If you buy a true pocket camera, there would probably be no question of your having it with you at all times. This can be surprisingly useful simply as a way of grabbing information beyond any other goals you may have. You will have to determine whether a jacket pocket compact or larger will end up getting left at home or not and whether this is a matter for concern. I was able to take the camera store counter shot for Fig. 1 on the spur of the moment because my jacket cam (an LX1) is always with me. In my case, it resides in my shoulder bag which is nearly always with me, or in a pants pocket, if not.

Speed to first shot

One of the key scenarios for small camera use is getting off a quick grab shot. So an important issue is: how long does it take from flicking the on-switch to the instant you can first get a shot by pressing the shutter release? This is one of the easiest variables to determine about a camera. Generally, it's a question of how long it takes for the zoom to unfurl, which varies from pokey to speedy. My LX1, as well as being pokey extending its zoom, actually has a lens cap and this adds both a bit of irritation and a bit of delay in getting that first shot. The first few seconds with a given camera in the camera store will tell the story; plus dpreview.com reviews always cover this and other operational speed issues in the Timings & Sizes section.

Shot to shot speed (frame rate)

This can be another key variable for action photography. Many photographers pride themselves on being old-school, on nailing the decisive moment with a single exposure, on working in manual mode and pre-focusing to circumvent camera delays. But how often have you needed to get the next frame in immediately? Your subject blinked, a taxi darted between you and your subject – whatever.

A significant fraction of any shot to shot delay is time to write the image file to the memory card, which is as much dependent on the card's performance as on the camera's. Another is the speed with which the camera's internal computer system handles auto focus, auto exposure, etc.

As mentioned above, we can now at least put behind us the era of unacceptable shutter lags and begin to take pictures of moving subjects. This is not to say that you can expect instant and infallible auto focus from any given model, but this should be more the rule than the exception.

Getting a usable exposure

Exposure seems like something that should be a non-issue for a digital camera. After all, each and every one of those millions of pixels is a midget light meter. I'm not hep to all the technical issues, but clearly it doesn't work that way. Plus there are some non-technical issues at play. Camera designers are not aiming for the same results you and I are.

Their goal is not an optimal exposure – which may need post-processing – but a sellable exposure – and a sellable exposure is the one in which the camera guesses which part of the frame is the main subject then takes its reading from that. This may result in blown highlights, a pure white sky, or an entire interior in near darkness; but, by gum, if Johnny's face is well-lit that's the end of the matter.

Because this problem is by no means confined to compacts, as a dSLR user you may be used to taking a test exposure in a given light situation, checking the histogram and/or the review image on the LCD, then twiddling with the compensation setting. You will also be accustomed to actually being able to read the shutter and aperture in the view finder. When the sun is over your shoulder and all you have is an LCD, everything you know about setting exposure suddenly goes out the window.

Exposure problem

Fig. 7: a) auto exposure vs. b) exposure lock then re-frame

When you can't read the LCD you have to rely on multi-pattern/evaluative auto exposure and camera companies vary in the sophistication of their auto exposure algorithms. The more you use a given camera the more you'll be able to predict where auto exposure will fail. I generally find that problems occur when a large portion of the frame is significantly darker or lighter than another portion of the frame, as in sky and backlit foreground or an interior with a daylit window. It's easy to correct for this by grabbing a usable exposure from some part of the scene, pressing the exposure lock button, then re-composing the shot. But this involves a) being able to see the LCD, and b) having an exposure lock button on the camera.

Getting a blur-free shot (ISO and IS)

Camera Shake

Fig. 8: Camera Shake (not to mention noise)

Ten years ago your first and only thoughts about camera shake were tripod, steady hands, range finder vs. SLR, and high ISO film. Carrying and using a full-length tripod pretty much defeats the purpose of working with a compact camera. Although lacking in mirror slap, their extreme lack of weight/inertia pretty much defeats the steadiest of hands; and on top of that we use them held out at arm's length instead of pressed against one's face for added support. That leaves high ISOs and the new kid on the block: image stabilization (AKA vibration reduction and shake reduction).

The problem is, as we discussed above, compact camera high ISOs are rendered essentially useless, thanks to their gnat's-fingernail-sized sensors, and the resulting noise and/or noise reduction artifacting. (Still waiting for that technical breakthrough...)

Which leaves image stabilization (IS). This is far from being a panacea, since a shot using IS may eliminate two stops of camera shake but doesn't touch the two stops of subject motion. Nevertheless, it is so beneficial that once you've worked with it for a few days you'll never again want to consider a compact camera without it for any kind of non-tripod use.

IS is so important a development that those companies that were late to the IS party, such as Fuji, Casio, and Olympus, have resorted to obfustication by implying that high ISO and/or best shot selection, etc. are equivalent to gyro-based IS. Pentax, Olympus, Ricoh, Samsung, and Panasonic/Leica have a true IS that moves the sensor. Canon, Nikon, and Sony have a true IS that moves lens elements. Word seems to be that sensor and lens implementations are roughly equal in effectiveness. Only Panasonic/Leica that I know of includes IS in every model; the others reserve it for selected models.

As I'm writing this Fuji has made a very significant announcement: their latest high-end pocket model, the F50fd, will have both true IS as well as the usable higher ISOs their SuperCCD sensors are famous for. No RAW, of course, and slim change for usable exposure control ... but the fd stands for Face Detection, which is what really counts, right?

Composing/framing a shot

The current generation of 2.5" and 3" LCDs on the backs of compacts seems so appealing that it's a real shame they're next to useless whenever the sun is at your back ... especially since you can count on the sun being at your back for at least one out of every two guaranteed-hall-of-fame shots you come across.

The obvious answer would seem to be to refuse to buy any camera without a finder – but there's a problem with that. The finders on any camera smaller than a Leica M is very nearly as useless as the LCD. Coverage is about 80% of the frame (and just try getting a tight composition with that). There is no exposure or any other readouts in the finder. And parallax error rules the day.

You may want to practice cupping your hand (but you really need to cup with both hands) over the LCD. So far as I can tell the ultimate solution is to frame the shot by looking at the scene then to glance at the LCD – not to frame the shot, but to verify that the camera is framing the same shot you are (that the same objects or details are at the edges of the frame that you want there). For that the often washed-out image on the LCD is usually usable.

Zoom range and aspect ratio

One of the most common complaints about compact cameras is that the widest focal length is so often 38mm equiv (since the 42mm equiv is the dividing line between wide territory and tele, 38mm hardly deserves the wide angle moniker). Anyone who has gotten used to 28mm or wider will feel as though a lens that bottoms out at 38mm has jammed. When working in a confined space, such as inside most rooms, 28mm isn't even a luxury; it's become a necessity.

Starting at 38mm, compact zooms then proceed to go in the only available direction – tele. Fabulous for birders, but how many of the rest of us use anything longer than 140mm on a daily basis? And of course, shooting at, say, 300mm handheld is going to put any IS system to the test, even in the best light.

Another aspect of small camera image capture is aspect ratio. There is no such thing as an ideal aspect ratio. Most small digital cameras have historically had 3:4 sensors. This is a reasonable compromise between the various print sizes most commonly purchased by the vast hoard of vacation and birthday shooters.

Thanks (if that's the right word) to the new fad in more extreme aspect ratios in HD TV. Panasonic's LX series has a native 9:16 sensor and a dedicated switch to crop down to 2:3 and 3:4. More often compact cameras have a 3:4 native sensor with 2:3 and now occasionally also 9:16 cropping options available.

Page 3: Image quality issues.

The Compact Camera Quandary– State of the Market, Mid-2007