Six approaches to the compact camera genre 10 April 2026

 

Canon EOS R7 with Sigma 10-18mm ultrawide zoom. An excellent lens.

In the early days of digital photography, compact fixed lens cameras were very popular. Total global digital camera sales peaked at around 120million units per year in 2010. Most of these were budget compact fixed lens units.  Then came smartphones with built-in cameras which sold 1,434million units in 2021 while the market for compact digital cameras crashed to around 3 million units per year in 2021-2013. However there has been a mini-revival in compact digital camera sales in 2024-26 with budget fixed lens models without a viewfinder leading the way. 

In pre-2010 days, camera makers designed and delivered whatever they thought the market might want as long as it was within their technical capability and it aligned with price segments determined by the marketing people.

But the compact camera revival which appears to be currently under way is targeted to specific user groups. It is a buyer first approach rather than the previous product first approach.

Differentiation between product lines is not on the basis of product capability but user demographic. 

We can identify some of these user groups.

1. Enthusiast photographers who want a compact model when they don’t want to bring along a full sized kit. Still photos are the main output although video is possible.

There are still some models which could appeal to this user demographic. Most are expensive. Several have a fixed lens like the Fujifilm X100 series, Ricoh GR series and Leica Q series. Others have a zoom lens such as the Sony RX100 series and Leica DLseries.

2. Interchangeable lens camera users who want the benefits of interchangeable lenses and compact size all in one kit. Many mirrorless interchangeable lens (MILC) models could fit the bill here.  Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm and Sony each have a selection of good quality APSC or Full Frame bodies and lenses.

We might expect that  Micro Four Thirds with its smaller-than-APSC sensor would be the go-to system for compact MILCs. Indeed there are a few compact MFT models such as the Lumix G100D and OM 3 and OM 5 lines, with some genuinely compact lenses being available. However many MFT models are larger than some full frame models with relatively oversize lenses to match.

3. Vloggers and videographers. This segment has seen considerable growth in recent years with both fixed lens and interchangeable lens models now available. Canon V series, Sony ZV and FX series, Nikon ZR and Lumix GH series are all aimed at videographers and vloggers with models to suit beginners, enthusiasts and professional movie makers.

4. Smart phone graduates.  All the established camera makers are very interested in this potentially very large group. These people have no experience of using a device with a viewfinder or a handle or dedicated controls for exposure and focus parameters. They do want a zoom lens which smartphones generally do not have and they are attracted to the idea of using something different from a smartphone. So we see the Canon G7X series flourishing but the G5X models out of production. Lumix is apparently doing well with the TZ99 and TZ300 models which are billed as new but are actually just older models from which the EVF has been removed.

5. Funsters.  This is a user group the growth of which I suspect  established camera makers might have missed, at least in its early stages. But Chinese camera makers are attracting this group with a range of tiny sensor zoom compacts without an EVF and without any serious pretensions to image quality. Many of these models bear the Kodak brand name but have no connection to the original Eastman Kodak corporation.

Some products aimed at this group have been labelled as “scamras”, a term which describes devices which look like cameras and are promoted as such but which are barely able to produce anything resembling an actual photo.

6. I want to see a print. When I was a child, a long time ago, back in the middle of the last century, my parents took photos with a camera which took “rollfilm” which we would now describe as medium format, gave the exposed roll to the person at the camera shop and a few days later picked up a batch of contact prints, each about 50x70mm in size,  the best of which were included in the family photo album for posterity. 

In the 1960s and 1970s The Polaroid Land corporation satisfied consumers’ desire for prints with their instant print cameras, film and process. 

In the current era the  Instax line of instant print models are Fujifilm’s biggest seller, especially in Japan and other parts of Asia. 

Thes cameras produce instant prints 62x46mm or 62x99mm in size. For many consumers that is enough for their requirements.

Summary

We might be in  the early stages of a compact camera revival. If so the previous near-mono-culture of almost identical models will be replaced by a range of different camera types each targeting an identified user group. Some of these groups consist of people with no experience of traditional cameras of any kind. It will be interesting to see where that leads the product development people.