Show me a compact that can...
- accurately AF track a bird in flight and isolate it from a busy background, or a sprinter/footballer, or a speeding car
- shoot 5+ frames per second,
- grab focus in a fraction of a second, even in dim light
- capture the image the instant you release the shutter,
- shoot (relatively) cleanly at 1600 ISO and higher,
- save files in raw format,
- gives a focal length range of 16mm - 896mm (35mm equivalent), which I have at my disposal at the moment (that's 56X optical zoom),
- gives you shallow DOF control to create nice bokeh for portraits, or isolate a single player in a rugby scrum,
- flash that can be bounced, fine tuned and reaches to 20m and beyond,
- shoot 1200+ frames without recharging or replacing batteries,
- capture 8-9 stops of dynamic range,
- sync flash at 1/250 or even faster, for daylight fill flash
- shoot wider than 28mm (35mm equivalent)
- shoot at 80mm f/1.8 or 27mm-320mm f/2.8 or 160mm-640mm f/4.5-f/5.6 or 896mm f/8 (35mm equivalent)
- give 3 stops of optical image stabilisation
- shoot with flash and avoid red eye at all distances
- be adjusted quickly for ISO, aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation, flash exposure compensation
- separate the focusing operation from exposure metering and shutter release
- allow manual fine tuning of focus, for macro or product photography, or to shoot through, and beyond, wire fencing or branches and leaves
- be operated remotely - remote shooting with a laptop - for whatever reason
- display an RGB histogram for critical exposure analysis and correction
- stop down to f/22 or f/32 to allow a long exposure to smooth the flow of a stream or waterfall
- stop down to f/22 or f/32 to allow a long exposure to smooth the flow of a stream or waterfall
and not suffer from massive diffraction softening
- constant aperture over the entire zoom range, making manual exposure straightforward while needing to zoom
I'm not aware of any compact that can deliver on more than 2-3 of those requirements, ever mind all of them, but my Canon 40D, 580EX flash and five lenses can. A G9 will do raw and, with a 580EX mounted, could also handle the flash requirements, but then it would no longer be compact.
Could you shoot a church wedding (successfully) with a compact? Could you shoot motorsport, or most action sports, well with a compact, reliably and under a wide range of lighting and weather conditions? Could you create a DOF so thin that only the eyes were in focus, for a full headshot? Could you capture a sequence of shots of your dog running towards you at full tilt?
I have a Sony DSC-P200 digicam. In good light, with a static subject/scene it works quite well. It's OK for snapshots and simple captures. For anything else it is complete and utter rubbish. Pictures are revolting at anything above 200 ISO. Even at 200 ISO the pictures are far from noise free. I hate it. Even so, there is nothing on the market today that I would want to spend my money on to replace it because in my opinion there is nothing good enough to make it worth spending the money. I'll stick with the SLR, content myself with snapshots, or simply not bother. The Fuji F31 was the best option (even without raw) but Fuji (and everyone else) sold out to marketing with these stupid stupid stupid high megapixel counts. I suppose the Canon G9 is closest to being the best compact available today but it is not especially compact and still can't do AI servo tracking of moving subjects. High ISO sucks as well. Now a G9 with the Fuji F31 sensor would begin to be getting somewhere, but even then, for action shots.......
Compacts might be OK for average photos in average conditions. In the right hands they can deliver amazing photographs. They certainly have their place, for convenience and price, but as soon as you push the envelope, in my opinion, compacts will run out of steam pretty quickly.
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