Best Compact Cameras | 2024

Welcome to our guide to the best compact cameras. A compact camera isn’t so-called because of its size — the term refers to a camera with a fixed lens that can’t be changed. If you like the idea of an all-in-one photographic package, rather than having to think about the cost of lenses, then a compact camera is an excellent choice.

A good compact will represent a significant upgrade over a smartphone. It might be because it boasts a much larger sensor with superior image quality, or because it offers a powerful optical zoom lens for shooting versatility — or both! Compact cameras are often popular for travel and day-to-day photography, though some are loved for their sheer style.

If you think you’d prefer the versatility of an interchangeable-lens system camera, we have comprehensive guides to the best mirrorless cameras and best digital cameras overall. Otherwise, read on as we count off the best compact cameras for a range of use cases and budgets. 

Our top 3 cameras

Best Compact Camera for Street Photography

Many — though not all — compact cameras are a perfect choice for street photography. Get yourself a compact with a slimline body, a fast autofocus system, a lens that’s capable of producing a fairly naturalistic field of view, and you’ll have a setup that’s served many a street photographer well over decades. Street photography is all about fleeting moments, about staying observant but unobserved while the world unfolds itself around you. A good compact camera can be your best friend in this endeavour.

You probably don’t want a hulking bridge camera with a bazooka-like zoom strapped to the front of it. Nor do you want a cheap and overly simple camera that isn’t going to produce aesthetically pleasing results. So, here are our picks of the fast, responsive compact cameras that are going to give you great results for street photography.

A chic, lightweight street-photography camera with a fixed prime lens and a large sensor. Effectively a more affordable version of the X100V, the Ricoh GR III is a fantastic take-everywhere camera.

While it doesn’t have a zoom lens, the Ricoh GR III is a svelte and sophisticated camera with lots of its own advantages. Its high-quality prime lens, which provides an equivalent focal length of 28mm, is a fantastic option for street shots and everyday moments when you’re facing the unpredictable. Plus, the 24.24MP APS-C sensor means the GR III produces high-quality images in all sorts of lighting conditions, with generous dynamic range.

A firmware update in 2020 further upgraded the Ricoh GR III’s performance, enhancing it into the kind of capable, dependable street camera that travel photographers love. With a lightning fast start-up time of around 0.8secs, the GR III can be ready to shoot at a moment’s notice, ensuring you’ll never miss the crucial moment, no matter where your travels take you. It’s also available as a special Ricoh GR III Street Edition, which has distinctive orange-yellow styling and includes a case and an extra battery. And, if you prefer a longer focal length, there’s the Ricoh GR IIIx, which is essentially identical except that it uses a 40mm equivalent lens rather than a 28mm. 

Best Compact Camera for Beginners

First up, we’ve collated our picks of the best compact cameras for beginners. Compacts are an ideal place to start for anyone looking to upgrade from a smartphone and take photography more seriously. The all-in-one setup gives you everything you need to start shooting as soon as you open the box, and many compacts come with beginner-friendly features like long zoom lenses or extensive waterproofing. 

The compacts in this section are all designed to be user-friendly, intuitive and fun to get to grips with — however, crucially, they’ll still take great images and videos. While the image quality here isn’t going to be on a par with some of the more premium cameras in later sections, all of the models in this section will get the job done. Here are our top picks of compact cameras for beginners…

Tough compacts are great for beginners, as not only do they provide a solid imaging foundation to learn on, but they also can be taken into pretty much any shooting situation and come out smiling. One of the best is the Pentax WG-8, a shockproof, waterproof, freezeproof and crushproof camera that also happens to capture great stills and video. It can be taken underwater down to depths of up to 20 metres, for as long as two hours, giving you ample time to capture some sub-aquatic marvels. As you do, you’ll be aided by the zoom lens with its built-in ring light, giving you a little extra illumination where you need it.

Once again, note that these types of compacts tend to carry smaller sensors than the more premium cameras. This will have an impact on dynamic range, and as such the WG-8 may struggle in low-light situations. 

Best Compact Cameras With a Viewfinder

Not all compact cameras come with a viewfinder, relying on the LCD screen for composition. If you’re the type who prefers to compose images with something against your eye, we pick some of the best compacts with viewfinders around right now. These all use electronic viewfinders or EVFs – these used to be low-quality, but now are highly responsive and boast bags of resolution. Some photographers even prefer EVFs to optical finders, as they allow for the displaying of shooting information!

When manufacturers are looking to cut down on the size and price of a compact camera, often one of the first things they do is remove the viewfinder. This makes perfect sense – in the age of articulating LCD screens and lightning-fast Live View, many photographers, and particularly videographers, don’t use the viewfinder at all. However, some shooters simply can’t live without the immediacy of a viewfinder pressed up to their eye when shooting.

This section is for you guys. The compact cameras in this section all have fantastic electronic or hybrid viewfinders, with loads of resolution and rapid refresh rates. For immersing yourself in the moment of capturing the shot, there’s nothing better. And don’t worry – all these cameras shoot fantastic images, too, and with fast autofocus and generous sensor resolution, you can be confident that the images will look as good in a print as they do in the viewfinder.

Sony’s RX100 line of compacts is now on its seventh iteration (which you’ll meet further down this list), but the cameras have proved so popular that plenty of them have remained in production even as new ones have come along. Some have even had mild refreshes of their own, as is the case with the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 Mark VA, a small but welcome update to the original RX100 Mark V.

You get a winning combination of a high-quality 20.1MP 1"-type stacked CMOS sensor together with a 24-70mm equivalent lens that boasts an f1.8-2.8 maximum aperture. Rare for a compact, an aperture this wide gives the user extra flexibility when light levels start to drop, and the fact that it’s Zeiss-made means you can be assured of its sharpness.

And let’s not forget the viewfinder! The Sony Cyber-shot RX100 Mark VA sports a pop-up electronic viewfinder, and thanks to the upgraded processor of this “Mark VA” version, it’s faster and more responsive than ever.

Best Full Frame Compact Cameras

Compact cameras tend to have sensors in smaller sizes than interchangeable-lens cameras – 1-inch and 1/2.3-inch sensors are most common, with premium compacts generally sporting larger APS-C sensors. However, some compacts at the highest end have full-frame sensors, and in terms of image quality, they are unrivalled.

Why might you want a full-frame sensor? Well, these physically larger imaging sensors are able to have larger photosites, which means it’s possible to cram more pixels onto the sensor without incurring image noise, especially at high ISOs. This makes full-frame cameras able to produce images of greater dynamic range, and means they are more capable of producing useable images in low light. Full frame cameras can also produce images with a narrower depth of field, making them particularly good for portraiture, where you want a nice sharp main subject against an aesthetically blurred background.

Full-frame compact cameras are not common, but you do have options. Here are our favourites.

The Leica Q2 Monochrom is definitely not a camera for everyone. It’s essentially the same build and sensor/lens combination as the original Leica Q, except with one crucial difference – it has no colour filter array. That’s right, the Leica Q2 Monochrom, as the name implies, is only capable of capturing images in glorious, classically cool black and white.

And good lord do they look fantastic. The winningly sharp f1.7 Summilux lens delivers absolute crystal-clear quality from corner to corner, and the large full-frame sensor ensures tip-top dynamic range and tonality. It’s a camera for delivering a pure photographic experience, of losing yourself in the moment and being transported back to a simpler way of thinking. That’s not to say that the Q2 Monochrom doesn’t manage to fit in a few modern conveniences. It can hit a maximum ISO setting of 100,000 and still produce useable images, and it has an effective stabilisation system. It can even shoot 4K video!

Best Compact Cameras for Image Quality

Compact cameras used to be synonymous with cheapness and poor-quality imagery – but this is no longer the case. These days, as we’ve already seen, compact cameras are capable of capturing stunning imagery in all sorts of shooting situations, even when handling low-light or fast action. 

Opting for the convenience of a compact camera no longer means severely compromising image quality, as the models we’ve selected for this section demonstrate. With top-quality sensors, ultra-sharp lenses and advanced processing systems, these compact cameras are capable of producing image quality to a professional standard, no matter what you want to photograph. Any of the full-frame cameras we included in the previous section could have fit in here too, but those high-ticket shooters sit at the top end of the market. Here, we’ve gone for cameras accessible to more users, with different budgets and shooting needs. 

Best Compact Cameras With a Zoom

The fixed lens of a compact camera doesn't have to mean you’re stuck with a single perspective! Many compact cameras boast powerful zoom lenses that can capture high-quality images at a huge range of focal lengths. And “zoom” doesn’t have to mean “superzoom”, as there are plenty of compact cameras with zoom lenses that cover a more modest focal range, but do it with superior optical quality. As with any camera decision, it’s all about figuring out what best suits you and your image-making.

The compact cameras with a zoom we’ve picked for this section are a mixture of big-zoom bridge cameras and smaller zoom compacts that are perfect for travel. Which type is best for you depends largely on how much weight you’re up for carrying around all day, as well as how long a zoom you realistically need.

Best Pocket-Sized Compact Cameras

Portability is one of the greatest strengths of compacts, so we’d be remiss if we didn’t pick out the best pocket-sized compact cameras. We’re saying goodbye to enormous bridge cameras with their chunky zooms and DSLR-style bodies – the cameras in this section are ones to slip into a pocket or small bag and take everywhere with you. 

As you might imagine, pocket-sized compacts are ideal for travel. This means a zoom lens can be useful, to give yourself maximum flexibility, and it can also be a bonus to have a tough and waterproof camera body that’s capable of standing up to the elements. With smaller compacts you do have to accept a few compromises – they often have quite short battery life, so it’s a good idea to pack a few spares and an extra charger or two. 

But as they say, the best camera is the one you have with you – so here are some cameras you can always have with you.

The latest and greatest in Sony’s hugely popular RX100 line. The Sony RX100 Mark VII blends a long zoom lens with a high-resolution sensor and a slim body. This is what a point-and-shoot camera for professionals looks like.

It’s just incredible how much Sony managed to pack into this camera. The 20.1MP Exmor RS CMOS 1-inch sensor is, of course, excellent, and just by itself would be enough to produce some of the best image quality from any compact camera around. But then that’s also paired with a Zeiss-made 24-200mm f2.8-4.5 lens for tremendous versatility. And then you’ve got the ability to burst shoot at up to 20fps with no viewfinder blackout, alongside an autofocus system capable of making up to 60 tracking calculations every second. Of course, that isn’t the fastest the camera can shoot – its Single Burst Shooting’ Drive Mode can get up to 90fps!

The RX100 VII is highly optimised for video, producing pristine 4K footage with full pixel readout. It can shoot in the S-Log3 gamma profile for a flat image, and produce super-slow-motion at up to 1000fps. Without a doubt, this is one of the most technologically advanced compact cameras ever made, able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with professional DSLRs and mirrorless machines.

It may not look much like a camera at all at first glance, but the Canon PowerShot Zoom is an impressive little compact with powerful optical capabilities. It counts among its fans the naturalist Chris Packham, and indeed, it’s a great choice for bird-watching, especially with family. The diminutive design and simple operation mean it's easy for a child to get to grips with, while the bright and clear electronic viewfinder makes for a pleasing viewing experience.

The zoom works in a three-stage system, toggling between 100mm, 400mm and 800mm settings (the last one is aided by digital zoom). The camera can capture 12.1MP stills or Full HD video, and has built-in mics to capture the ambient audio as well. A 4-axis optical stabiliser also helps keep the view steady when using the longer zoom settings. For walks in the woods and family outings, the Canon PowerShot Zoom is a great choice.

Best Compact Cameras for YouTube

Compact cameras have come into their own as tools for vlogging and YouTube video creators. As 4K video has been adopted across the board, to the point where it’s expected as a minimum on practically any new camera that comes out, video shooters who want an agile setup that’s as capable for locked-off pieces to camera as it is for run-and-gun shoots.

That’s where the best 4K compact cameras come into their own. Flexible and capable, these video shooters have quality where it counts, delivering a suite of flexible video options, with the capacity to add extra accessories such as an external microphone. While the majority of the compact cameras on our list already do shoot 4K, here we’ve picked a few suggestions that are truly optimised for video creators. With capable video AF, articulating screens and exceptional 4K quality, these compact cameras are ideal for any budding YouTuber or vlogger to get out there and get shooting. 

Sony’s refinement of its vlogger-friendly compact camera is an excellent option for YouTubers. With a wide-angle zoom that opens up to 18mm equivalent, you can fit plenty in the frame, and capture all the action in 4K 30p quality. This slimline camera sports a fully articulating LCD screen as well as a built-in three-capsule microphone that ensures audio quality is a cut above the average. There’s also the option to plug in an external mic if you prefer — though be aware that the camera is lacking a headphone jack.

Benefiting from phase-detection autofocus, the Sony ZV-1 II is a highly flexible shooter that can easily adapt to different situations. It also boasts Sony’s face-recognition technology, meaning it can recognise when new people enter the frame and make relevant adjustments to focus and bokeh.

Sony’s ZV cameras are designed for vlogging first and foremost — while they of course do capture stills, it’s not really what they’re intended for, as evidenced by the lack of a viewfinder.

FAQs

What is a compact camera?

A compact camera is a small, portable digital camera designed for easy use, with a built-in lens and limited manual controls. It’s ideal for everyday photography, offering convenience without the bulk of larger camera systems.

How does a compact camera differ from a DSLR?

Compact cameras are smaller and lighter than DSLRs, with fixed lenses and automatic settings. They typically lack the advanced features and interchangeable lenses found in DSLRs but are easier to use for casual photography.

Are compact cameras good for low-light photography?

Compact cameras perform well in good lighting but may struggle in low-light conditions due to smaller sensors. Some high-end models feature larger sensors and better image processing, improving low-light performance.

Can I zoom with a compact camera?

Yes, many compact cameras come with optical zoom lenses, allowing you to zoom in on subjects without losing image quality. Some models even offer a decent zoom range, making them versatile for various types of photography.

How long does the battery last in a compact camera?

The battery life of a compact camera typically ranges from 200 to 400 shots per charge, depending on usage and model. It’s important to carry an extra battery for extended shooting sessions, especially when using the camera for video recording.

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