With the relatively recent jump in smartphone camera quality and computational photography breakthroughs, it may seem like point and shoot cameras are a thing of the past. But there are scenarios where they still make sense.
For Casual Situations, Stick with Your Phone
Point and shoot cameras are better than ever, but they aren’t the same product they were fifteen (or even ten) years ago. A $100 or $200 point and shoot used to be the perfect item for casual photo taking. But now you’re better off using your phone.
Phones are better than cheap point and shoots for several reasons, but we’ll start by talking about photo quality. On paper, cheapo point and shoots should be better than phones. While phone cameras have 12 MP sensors and tiny lenses, even the dinkiest $100 point and shoots have 20 MP sensors, medium size lenses, and “10X OPTICAL ZOOM.”
But specs don’t dictate quality. A high megapixel camera with a fat lens has the capacity to create highly detailed images, but that capacity hinges on other factors—like lighting, lens hardware, and the software that’s baked into the camera. Your phone camera is built to work in low-light environments at a hardware level, but it also features unique computational software that’s absent from cheap point and shoots.
Wait, I’ve got software in my photos? Computational photography is a relatively new breakthrough that uses software to process and correct photos. Think of red eye correction, except your entire photo is processed to show more dynamic range (crisp whites and deep blacks).
The iPhone’s Deep Fusion software and the Google Pixel’s HDR+ are wonderful examples of computational photography. Each time you take a picture on these (and other) phones, you’re actually taking a burst of photos that are funneled through a DRAM chip and processed pixel by pixel to create one amazing image. Cheap point and shoots don’t do that. Often times, they don’t even have night modes.
Let’s not forget that your phone has built-in image editors, direct access to social media platforms, and potentially unlimited storage through services like Dropbox, iCloud, Google Photos, Amazon Photos, etc. A cheap little point and shoot doesn’t have any of that. They don’t even come with SD cards anymore!
As good as phone cameras are, though, they’re mostly limited to casual applications. If you’re trying to take professional or artistic photos that reach beyond the limits of a phone camera, a high-quality point and shoot might be your best option. It’s just gonna cost you a bit of money.
For Quality, Be Prepared to Spend More Than $400
Point and shoots have always lived a secret double life. On the one hand, they’re cheap and easy cameras for the masses. But they’re also wonderful tools for professional or amateur photographers who can’t (or don’t want to) deal with a huge DSLR.
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