Best compact choices

Sometimes you don't want, or need, to haul around a bag of clanking lenses. Will Cheung picks his favourite bridge and compact cameras, new and used - they are convenient, while also delivering excellent image quality

- Will Cheung

The camera world used to be dominated by compact cameras and millions were sold every year; they probably kept the world of photography solvent. All that has changed with the inexorable rise of the camera phone and most of us rely on them to record our lives, for visual notetaking, to feed social media streams and for family snaps. Absolutely nothing wrong in that and it makes perfect sense because they are hugely capable imaging devices, and the latest high-end models are amazing with multi-lens systems, high resolution and computational photography features.

That said, for keen photographers a phone is a great backup, but there is nothing to beat a fixed-lens compact camera, or for those aiming to be a little more adventurous - a bridge camera with a powerful zoom lens is just the ticket. Which camera type you go for is a personal matter and there are pros and cons to each. Here, we'll be discussing both types, we'll offer buying suggestions for new and used cameras and talk shooting techniques too.

With the dominance of phones, the camera manufacturers have had to work hard to develop features and technologies to give their products an extra appeal.

Most smartphones have tiny sensors and while they are remarkably capable, when light levels drop, they suffer from digital noise, images look grainy, and detail starts to break up.

On compacts, there has been a focus on larger sensors - lin, Micro Four Thirds and APS-C - which means superior image quality with cleaner blacks, richer colours and crisper detail, and the benefits are even more obvious when you venture up the ISO scale when the lighting conditions are less favourable.

Quality optics are essential to make the most of the potential of larger sensors and many compacts have a lens with a single focal length, usually a moderate wide-angle or standard, and often with a fast maximum aperture, so ideal for a broad range of subject matter.