Product Survey: Compact Digital Cameras 2007-2008

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The ideal camera has a wide angle, little noise in high sensitivities, a big screen, and is stabilized and fast. These little gems do exist and you will find good compacts at low prices.

Vincent Alzieu
Updated: May 21, 2009

The tests

All aspects of a camera count in our evaluation; size, weight, colour rendering, details, reactivity. First, we start with the same tests for each product: All parameters are evaluated indoors on the same test scene and under the same conditions (daylight, night, etc.). Then we go outdoors and do the same. This year we updated our test conditions (better quality lighting, etc.) in order to adapt them to manufacturer improvements and make them more discriminating. While this makes it more difficult to compare newer and older models in the Side by Side photo section, it allows us to better test current and future models.

Next we put them through their paces in terms of handling, print quality, colors, portraits, etc. Finally, our Side by Side photo section complements this information. There you'll find the test results for color, sharpness, contrast, speed, and noise.

Updated October 21, 2008: the compact digital cameras product survey. You'll find the compacts from 2007 and 2008 here and the current crop in our product survey of compact digital cameras 2009.

What are the latest and most impressive advances in the new wave of 2007/2008 compacts? There have been four main improvements:

- Reactivity: "older" cameras are a bit weak in startup, between shots and in burst mode. Taking a photo on the fly is often problematic. Good compacts now start up in less than 2 seconds. The most reactive come from Canon with startup and the time between shots at about a second.

- Stabilization: (almost) all have this. A stabilized camera doesn’t make subjects in movement sharp, rather it eliminates, or at least considerably reduces, camera shake. In practice, when a non-stabilized camera should be at 800 ISO to produce a clean image, a stabilized model can function at 200 ISO resulting in a cleaner photo with less noise.

- Reduced noise: it’s the new obsession for manufacturers. It’s no longer enough to produce photos without a flash in high sensitivities (800 ISO, for example), now they have to be of good quality and usable. Fuji opened the way, Panasonic and then Canon followed...with good results!

- Bigger sensors: this is the aspect of the spec that everyone likes to underline, but in our opinion the least important. Yes, the latest compacts can have 12 megapixel sensors which are quite impressive. But what’s the point? In practice, 12 MP photos barely have more detail than those of an 8 MP and give you bigger files to deal with. You can store fewer and noise control is more complicated.

Compare image quality for yourself!

We recommend you judge image quality yourself. Remember, Digitalversus is not only here to inform you but also so you can compare the quality of any two cameras side by side. Use and abuse! You'll find some interesting face-offs!

A few recommendations to finish up with. There are a lot of cameras in our list. Use the filters to find more exactly what you're looking for. For example: only the best, eliminate the most expensive, etc.

Finally, maybe you'll find a compact a bit limited. Bridges are genrally bigger and come with much more powerful zooms. There is a special section given over to them. For those looking for even more specialisation, go straight to our survey of reflexes. Once unaffordable, some now come at the same price as some of the best compacts. They tend to be more reactive, have improved noise control and added versatility.