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TechRadar

Timothy Coleman

I used my vintage point-and-shoot for the first time in years – here’s how it compares to my Pixel phone

Tim Coleman Nikon Canon (Organization) Sony Fujifilm

Sony Cybershot RX100 point-and-shoot camera in the hand.

Point-and-shoot cameras are trending, with demand for particular vintage models blowing up thanks to It-Girls and influencers on social media. The Nikon Coolpix S6900 in pink and the Canon Powershot G7X are two such cameras that have soared in popularity, and value – good luck trying to buy one of those right now.

It got me thinking about my own point-and-shoot that I bought back in 2012, the Sony Cyber-shot RX100. It’s a camera from a similar moment in time to those Nikon and Canon models, when leading brands were still producing new point-and-shoots (just about), but when smartphones were really starting to squeeze that market.

Despite their new-found popularity, the point-and-shoot market is on life support, and nowadays your only real options are secondhand, unless you don't mind the idea of a super-cheap new Kodak, or another breed of premium compact camera, such as the Fujifilm X100VI.

So what is all the fuss about with point-and-shoots? What’s the experience of using a point-and-shoot compact in 2024 like, and should you simply stick with your phone's camera? I searched out my RX100 to remind myself why it appealed to me all those years ago.

The RX100 is barely a handful and easily slips into a trouser pocket (Image credit: Future / Tim Coleman)

The way you make me feel

I hadn’t used my RX100 in years, but it didn’t take me long to find it at home and it still started up fine after years of inactivity – the battery was even fully charged!

I remember back in 2012 it was the first point-and-shoot camera that really appealed, being genuinely pocketable but with a new, bigger 1-inch sensor and fast-aperture lens that could actually produce the image quality I would hope for. Its image quality blew comparable point-and-shoots out the water.

It was super-popular back then and spawned a new series of premium compact cameras that spanned seven iterations, with the RX100 VII being the final model in 2019. You can still buy the five-year-old model new for around $1,100 / £1,000. However, the original RX100, especially if it's like mine in its ‘heavy-use’ condition, can be had secondhand for more like $300 / £300.

I’ve always been an advocate for using a dedicated camera for photography over a smartphone – you simply get a different feeling when making pictures, and that's very much the case with my RX100.

It slips into a trouser pocket, packs a 28-100mm lens which is roughly a 4x optical zoom, and features a cute built-in pop-up flash with brightness control, handy for portraits and parties.

Rotating the control ring around the lens can adjust lens aperture (Image credit: Future / Tim Coleman)

As a seasoned photographer I also love the RX100’s handling, including controls such as its customizable lens control ring, which can be used to adjust aperture among other things.

I walked around the historic and photographer-friendly city of Bath in the UK with the RX100, making pictures as I went, and the experience put a smile on my face – I particularly enjoyed the old-school sounds the camera makes.

It’s not a connected camera, so to get my pictures onto my phone or computer and online I need to download them from the SD card. That’s totally fine with me; I'm rarely in a rush to share photos, if at all.

The RX100 is a capable camera and, despite its limitations versus today's phones and mirrorless cameras, it charmed me all over again. I don’t know how long these feelings will last, but my love for the vintage point-and-shoot has been rekindled.

The dinky pop-up flash is a handy feature, especially for parties (Image credit: Future / Tim Coleman)

Quality control

2024's smartphones in general shoot better-quality photos and videos than most point-and-shoot cameras, but my RX100 is better than most rivals, and can hold its own against my Google Pixel 6 – and the devices are similar in price these days. The same can be said regarding price for the latest Pixel 8 Pro versus the latest Cyber-shot, the RX100 VII.

I can opt to shoot photos with the RX100 in raw+JPEG format, or either format individually. The raw files give greater scope for image adjustments using editing software afterwards, but I wanted to try out the RX100’s different Picture Effects, which include various color profiles such as Toy Camera and Rich Tone Mono, and you have to select JPEG-only for those profiles to be available.

In keeping with the theme of this article and my historic surroundings I was drawn to the Retro Photo Picture Effect, and I shot the majority of my photos, including the ones you can see here, using this color profile.

There’s a sliding scale for picture quality in point-and-shoot cameras; the RX100 and Canon Powershot G7X are at the high-quality end, while other basic models like Nikon’s Coolpix S6900 and cheap Kodaks that are still available new are near the bottom end.

You might not give two hoots about picture quality from a vintage point-and-shoot, and in one sense neither do I – it’s the user experience that I really value, above outright quality.

A relic to rediscover, or best confined to the past?

I can see why point-and-shoot cameras are popular again, although I'm not the sort of person that needs convincing. It's leading camera brands that need to do some soul searching.

Point-and-shoots have enjoyed a surge in popularity for a few years now, especially with young photographers. Yet the likes of Canon, Sony and Nikon continue to shun the market entirely, focusing instead on the professional mirrorless camera market.

That's more to the pity. It feels like the youth have spoken, but most of the leading brands aren't listening... yet. Fujifilm's X100VI was the surprise success of 2024, and it's a premium compact camera that costs around $1,700 / £1,600. The Ricoh GR III series is another hit, costing around the $1,000 / £1000 mark. Money doesn't appear to be an object for this new generation of old-school shooters.

I hope that 2025 is the year that the simple point-and-shoot digital camera returns. It's been a good five years since we saw the best of their kind being launched, and with the latest tech new models could be seriously powerful little snappers.

Somehow I doubt that Canon, Sony, and Nikon will indulge us, and maybe that's okay – perhaps giving a new lease of life to old models is the most poetic part of this story. Now I'm wondering which retro-style model will trend next – and that's in the hands of the TikTokers.