Not so long ago, there was a time where it would have been surreal to think we couldn’t leave the house without a camera. Yet today, this type of camera has become so ingrained in our culture, so integral to our daily routines that half of the time we forgot it’s even there. I am of course referring to the ones in our pockets, the ones that can also make phone calls and send emails thanks to cellular architecture. Today, the expectation that a smartphone exists to just keep us in the loop is very much a bare-minimum. Consumer demands and standards have steadily risen over the years and rightly so – technology demands progress and there will be casualties. One such example is the sad, silent demise of the DSLR, a type of camera that has – more or less – been replaced not just by mirrorless devices, but smartphones too. Alongside the DSLR however, is the simpler ‘point and shoot’ device that takes the form of the compact camera. Many of us will think fondly of the compact for its positive associations of travel and simplicity. And despite the fact that the compact camera market has been declining since 2010 thanks to the rise of smartphone cameras, they haven’t completely disappeared, and some manufacturers are still developing and selling them. In fact, their presence in the market is surprisingly high, with a recent report from BCN Retail indicating that over 60% of camera sales in Japan are still compact cameras and the volume of sales in 2024 dramatically increased by 132.7% when compared to 2023. Who could have predicted the resurgence of such seemingly dated technology?
The first digital compact camera released to the masses was Canon’s PowerShot 600 in 1996. The PowerShot 600 was one of the first commercially available cameras which naturally led to Canon’s surge in popularity and no doubt played a part in the brand becoming the household name we know and trust today. Much like a smartphone, it was also a very portable device which added to its success, although you would have a significantly harder time trying to fit it into your pocket thanks to its bulky construction. It boasted many fancy features for its time, such as a built-in LCD screen for previewing images as well as a 1.3-megapixel sensor. While this seems hilariously low by modern standards, the PowerShot 600 marked a key moment in digital camera history, though the compact camera’s history is too an uneven one – its reputation waned around 2010 when iPhones began to really take off. Simultaneously, many models at the times fell into one of two categories – they were either considered too expensive, or too lacking in innovation to be considered noteworthy. Cameras like the Canon Powershot S95 and the Panasonic Lumix LX5 weren’t adopting new tech in the way that fancy new phones were, while companies like Apple continued the advancement of smartphone sensors.
In 2023, they released the iPhone 15 series, kicking the previous 12-megapixel resolutions up to a whopping 48 megapixels, marking a notable leap in visual fidelity and hardware optimisation. Much of the increase in camera smartphone quality is due to the sheer number of demands; according to a 2024 study conducted by Priori Data, there are approximately 4.88 billion smartphone users worldwide, accounting for around 60% of the global population. In a world populated with images, influencers and Instagram users, camera resolution remains a key priority for modern consumers. Of course, it is no secret that Apple has been dominating the smartphone industry for several years now, but it is because of this dominance that rival brands have effectively had to up their game. For example, Android phones like Samsung have been boasting higher-resolution cameras to level the playing field (the Galaxy S25 Ultra boasts 200 megapixels) while tech giants like Sony made waves in the smartphone industry when they released the Xperia Z5 Premium, a phone that took the title of being the first in history to boast a 4K display. Today, the average resolution for primary smartphone cameras is estimated to be around 50 megapixels. Even the lower-end smartphone models today come with remarkable specifications, to the extent that a shaky photo taken on any modern device is still (almost) certainly going to look sharper than a photo taken with an actual camera ten years ago. With this level of progression, what is driving the compacts to resurface?
Well, a recent growing trend among Gen Z’s favoured platforms Instagram and TikTok are short videos often titled something along the lines of ‘Giving a disposable camera to strangers on a night out’. A montage of blurry, somewhat-staged photos of friends living in the moment will then typically ensue while trendy music plays. This suggests that the more lo-fi, retro look of images has become appealing to younger audiences and that a traditional camera offers up a more satisfying way to shoot. This popularity is not limited to throwaway cameras either. The Fujifilm X100VI also grew in popularity overnight thanks to this trend, causing the sale of both new and used devices to skyrocket. Additionally, cameras like the Ricoh GR IIIx have gained a cult fanbase for their pocket-sized design and image clarity, so much so that for many months in 2024 the demand exceeded the supply, causing existing models to jump in price. Ultimately, amateur photographers would be well suited to a compact camera in 2025 as opposed to a high-end mirrorless model, though it would be unreasonable to spend the kind of money that a Fujifilm X100VI currently demands when such sharper, cheaper alternatives exist. And while they have clearly caused the resurgence of the compact camera, the problem with social trends, particularly ones fuelled by social media, is that they come and go rather quickly. Given that modern consumers tend to lean towards the newest and fanciest tech, it is likely that the compact camera’s renewed spotlight could diminish just as quickly as it’s resurgence.