compactcamera

Compact camera lovers got a nod from Canon today at CES. The Japanese camera giant unveiled their latest compact camera, the PowerShot G9 X Mark II, packing a powerful processor and some serious speed into the most portable 1-inch sensor camera on the market.

Sony today announced the HX80, a new compact camera with a 30x zoom lens and a built-in retractable electronic viewfinder.

Panasonic drummed up some excitement back in 2014 by announcing the Lumix CM1, a smartphone with a serious camera that had a 1-inch sensor and a Leica lens.

The successor to that "phone camera" is now out, but it's not what you might expect. The new Panasonic CM10 is a followup to the CM1 that leaves out the phone aspect entirely -- it's now just a "smart camera."

The Sony RX100 III is a fantastic little camera and when I had the chance to play with its successor earlier in the year I was very excited to see if the RX100 IV would build upon the already high standards Sony has helped set. While Sony has been making some impressive advances in the high-end camera market, in the pro-compact area things are a lot tighter with Canon just edging ahead of the RX100 III with the G7X.

Ricoh today announced the GR II, a followup to the GR that doesn't add much in the way of improvements besides wireless connectivity.

Leica has just launched a brand new camera line with the Leica Q (Typ 116). It's a 24-megapixel fixed-lens full-frame compact camera that brings "iconic Leica features" to a new type of body.

Raspberry Pi project platform PiJuice is currently raising funds for its portable module on Kickstarter. As a demo of its capabilities, the team has created a step-by-step tutorial showing how the product can be used to build a DIY Raspberry Pi compact digital camera.

Nikon today unveiled the new Coolpix P900, a superzoom compact camera with a crazy 83x of optical zoom, allowing photographers to "take creativity to extreme distances."

Canon has refreshed its PowerShot compact camera line with five new cameras. Three SX series cameras feature wireless connectivity, while two ELPH updates feature simple spec improvements.

Today has been all Leica at Photokina, and we're not even done yet. Beyond the new big guns in the S-series, the LCD-less digital rangefinder and the all-mechanical M-A film rangefinder, Leica also improved its compact camera lineup with a number of new additions.

Specifically, they announced the Leica X, Leica X-E, Leica D-LUX and Leica V-LUX.

Let’s start with a little quiz. What one thing makes a pro camera a pro camera? Build quality? Weather sealing? Fast autofocus? Fast motor drive? Dual SD card slots?

Don’t think too long over the answer because it’s none of the above. A pro camera is a camera that a pro uses. Period.

It's finally here, and lest you feel the surprise of the RX100 Mark III was ruined by the spec and photo leak from early this morning, fear not, they got at least one thing wrong.

Yesterday, a page out of an official Sony camera manual leaked revealing that the company is indeed working on an RX100 Mark III (previously referred to as the RX200), and now sonyalpharumors has gotten their hands on some further details thanks to a 'trusted source.'

While there isn't much information available on it yet, Olympus seems to be playing with the idea of what would be the worlds fastest compact camera, according to Patent No. 2014-48359.

Canon's mirrorless attempts haven't gone all that well. But where they've struck out in the mirrorless game, their large-sensor G1 X compact announced at CES 2012 has done quite well. Now, for this year's CP+, Canon has updated the powerful compact by releasing the even more capable G1 X Mark II.

We've said it before, but it bears mentioning again: smartphones might be bludgeoning the compact camera market, but that doesn't mean camera companies aren't putting up a fight. Fuji's new superzoom lineup is kind of a case in point, but a better example are the three new point-and-shoots just released by Canon.

A Little Background...

I am a 23-year-old photographer who moved to Chicago from Nigeria 6 years ago. I started photography about 3 years ago. After playing around with a DSLR in Target, I was hooked. I shoot mostly fashion photography, and female models. I have shot full frame since late 2011 with the 5D Mk2, then the D800 since November 2012.

There are advantages to shooting time-lapses using a cheap point-and-shoot camera -- for example, if it gets stolen, you're not out thousands of dollars -- but there is one particular challenge that is difficult to overcome: battery life. If you want your creation to cover any significant period of time, you need a way to keep the camera running.

The video above shows you one way to get around this problem if you're using a AA-powered camera: just build your own DIY battery pack.

You'd think companies would be shying away from creating new compact cameras -- or maybe going the way of Sony with its lens cameras -- but that doesn't seem to be the case. Earlier today, another big player released a new line of compact cameras: Leica.

There's nothing like the smell of fresh press release in the morning, and earlier today, Nikon decided to send two our way. The releases contain info about three new products that Nikon is announcing all at the same time: a new DX format lens, a small speedlight, and a 14x superzoom compact camera.

At the end of last month, a couple of job listings on Hasselblad's website revealed that the company was working on two new compacts and a DSLR. Part of their partnership with Sony, the hope was that these upcoming models would do better than the Hasselblad Lunar, which fell flat once people discovered it was basically a rebranded Sony NEX-7 with a much larger price tag.

Well, images of the first of those three cameras have leaked, but it doesn't look like Hasselblad is breaking the mold. Dubbed the Hasselblad Stellar (in keeping with the space theme), the first of the two rumored compacts looks to be a Sony RX100 made with more exotic camera housing materials.

So far, the partnership between Hasselblad and Sony hasn't been as enriching as both companies might have hoped for. Hasselblad's Lunar mirrorless camera was met with less-than-favorable reviews once people realized it was basically a re-branded Sony NEX-7 with a massive price tag.

But have no fear, the companies haven't stopped working together yet. In fact, if recent Hasselblad job listings are to be trusted, the company has three new cameras in the works.

After teasing a mysterious "Mini M" camera on its website since mid-May, Leica today finally announced the camera behind the codename. It's the Leica X Vario, a large sensor compact camera that "contains the DNA of the Leica M" rangefinder.

One of the big trends in the digital camera industry right now is the stuffing of large sensors into tiny cameras. Today Ricoh became the latest camera company to join in on the action. It has officially announced the Ricoh GR, a compact camera that features a beastly APS-C-sized sensor at its core.

Moscow, Russia-based photographer Alexey Kljatov shoots incredibly beautiful photographs of snowflakes on the open balcony of his home... using a custom compact camera kit. That's right: rather than use fancy (and pricey) camera gear, Kljatov simply uses a 12.1MP Canon PowerShot A650 and some DIY macro gear that he put together.

Tired of capturing the world as 2D photographs? What if you could just as easily capture things as 3D models? That's what Lynx A does. It's the world's first point-and-shoot 3D camera that produces 3D models with the push of a button. The company claims that "you can use a point-and-shoot Nikon, you'll find the Lynx A even easier to use."

Pentax has announced its latest line of uber-durable "adventureproof" compact cameras. There are three distinct cameras in the lineup: the WG-3, the WG-3 GPS, and the WG-10. All three are designed to take a beating and survive in locations that would be hazardous to other cameras' health.

It may not be the most popular series of compact cameras, but the Ricoh GR Digital line has attracted a sizable cult following of photographers around the world -- particularly street shooters. From the time the original GRD was announced at Photokina 2004 until the most recent GRD IV, the cameras have offered smaller 1/1.77-inch CCD sensors. That will soon change: a trusted source tells us that the Ricoh GR Digital V will feature a larger APS-C sensor.

We've seen a lot of gimmicks when it comes to selling cameras. Especially where point-and-shoots are concerned, gimmicky features have become standard over the past few years as part of the war on smartphones. But this has to be one of most interesting: a special edition camera with the sole purpose of inserting Japanese anime characters into your pictures.

The camera is a modified Casio Exilim, and the second in a series of cameras by electronics magazine Digimono Station made especially for fans of the show "Puella Magi Madoka Magica."

Canon's attention grabber at this year's CES 2013 is a new compact camera designed to fight against the encroachment of smartphones: the PowerShot N.

The little guy is unlike most point-and-shoots you'll find on the market. It's extremely small, square, and simple. The design may seem gimmicky at first, but pick it up in your hands and your opinion might change.

ClearViewer is the compact camera's equivalent of a DSLR viewfinder attachment. It's a folding high-diopter lens that lets you use your compact camera's LCD screen as an electronic viewfinder by putting your eye less than 2 inches away from the screen. This lets you see fine details in the shot, make precise manual focus adjustments, and avoid the problem of glare.

Earlier this year, New York Times gadget columnist David Pogue wrote a glowing review of the …

Compact cameras are becoming pretty serious photography tools when it comes to sensor sizes and lens qualities, but one thing they generally lack is an easy-to-use filter system. Interchangeable-lens photographers can usually just find a filter of the correct diameter and use it with their lens, but things get more complicated when you're dealing with fixed-lens cameras. Although using filters is possible with some models, the systems aren't very friendly: they're usually proprietary, expensive, or based on unwieldy adapters.

That all changes with the new MagFilter by CarrySpeed, an easy-to-use filter system for compact cameras based on magnets rather than threads.

A number of publications have begun receiving hands-on time with the new Sony RX1 full-frame compact camera. It seems that Sony is doing something right, as initial commentators and testers are saying some pretty positive things about the $2,800 shooter.

One major trend in the camera industry this year is the introduction of mobile operating systems such as Android into digital cameras. By opening the door to things like Wi-Fi, data plans, and apps, camera makers are going in the same direction that phone makers went some years ago, turning their devices into what can best be described as portable computers with specialized functions (e.g. voice-calling, photography).

While covering the trend, we've been at a loss for what to call the new cameras. After calling the Samsung Galaxy Camera a "voiceless phonecamera" in our hands-on first-look yesterday, commenters suggested that we call the device a "smartcamera". Bingo... that's the term we were looking for.

Fujifilm is a camera company that's going all-in on the idea of "retro design". We're not complaining. Its new XF1 compact camera brings the sleek design of X-Series' cameras to the world of "point-and-shoots", featuring a minimalist aluminum body that's covered with faux-leather. The camera feels very nice and solid in the hand. It's not as compact as other point-and-shoots (the Canon S110 is around 30% smaller and 20% lighter), so I'd say it's purse-sized rather than pocket-sized. What it lacks in portability, however, it makes up for in beauty and brawn.

Sony shook up the digital camera world today by announcing the RX1, a game-changing camera that was somehow kept under wraps until news about it leaked a few days ago. Regardless of whether or not ordinary consumers will readily adopt it, it's a bold camera that sets the bar for what the world can expect in a point-and-shoot. Why is it so revolutionary? It's the first time a full frame sensor has been put inside a compact camera body.

One of the biggest photo stories at the moment is the fact that Sony is planning to stuff a full frame sensor inside an upcoming compact camera called the RX1. While the $2799 price tag likely puts it out of the reach of many photo enthusiasts, the fact that full frame sensors are starting to appear in fixed-lens compact cameras by a company other than Leica is pretty exciting.

What's amazing about the RX1 is how small it is. Sony somehow managed to stuff a huge full frame sensor inside a camera body that's roughly the size of the Panasonic GX1, which packs a much smaller Micro Four Thirds sensor.

As far as camera naming conventions go, Sigma's is pretty wacky. First off, we'll start with the news: the company announced today that its new DP1 Merrill compact camera will be available starting mid-September for a street price of $999.

Good, now that that's out of the way, lets talk about the name and the camera. Basically, it's a clone baby of the DP2 Merrill announced back in July, except the DP1 Merrill features a 19mm (28mm in 35mm terms) lens instead of a 30mm (45mm in 35mm terms) one. That's it.