Compacts at the Ready

Compacts at the Ready

The poor compact camera, squeezed on the one side by the mobile phone and on the other by ever smaller mirrorless cameras. One by one, manufacturers have given up on compacts........and yet, maybe they still do have a place. In my jacket pocket is a Pentax MX-1, not the most compact compact but small enough to fit and give my jacket a sloppy, well worn look as it spoils the way the fabric lies. Fortunately I'm not looking for the John Steed look, so sloppy the jacket can remain, Harris Tweed reigns! I digress, but the mobile phone can produce great images, although put them into Photoshop and have a good look at the drawbacks of the tiny format can be seen clearly enough. Going the other way, mitrrorless cameras are still larger than compacts and won't fit in my jacket pocket.

So 12MP and a lens that offers a really useful focal length range with bright maximum aperture (Equiv. 28-112mm, f/1.8-2.5), really close focusing down to 1cm and full control of parameters with lots of real dials and buttons and a menu system almost identical to the Pentax DSLR range. Every marque will have something from their back catalogue, and the Olympus ZX-1 and ZX-2 will seem very similar to the Pentax as well. But whatever the make and model, the principle is there, so let's have a quick look at some simple techniques.

Two sneaky shots at the ballet, Av setting with -2EV dialled in.





Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, 2017, Av setting with -1.7EV dialled in.













Always at the ready for reportage shots, and with no bulky bag to carry.





Compacts tend to be very sharp, thanks to in-camera sharpening being hard or even impossible to switch off.





Spontaneous portraits







There are of course other practicalities, such as recording accidents, products and offers in shops for later consideration, chance meetings and so on. Even crimes in progress I suppose. So don't write off the compact camera yet!