# Compact Cameras: making some decisions and could use some advice.



## Mr.Grumpy (Oct 11, 2013)

For the last year I have been dragging around a Canon SX 150IS. I liked it because it has PASM modes, good mega pixel value, has a great zoom lens and  it looks, you know, like a camera. The only, immediately noticeable, downside to the camera was it's size. It's pretty big and pretty heavy and doesn't really fit in a front pocket all that well. But I was willing to make those sacrifices in the name of Artistic Control. Or so I thought. It turns out that, at best, the range on the aperture on this thing is 3.5 to 8 and, in all but the widest zoom it's really 5.0-8.0. I have found this range to be, in a word, useless. Light is adjusted on this thing almost exclusively by shutter speed, unless light is very low and then the ISO starts to creep up, and up and up!. DOF is, as you can imagine, quite limited. In short, I have found that the PASM features that I initially bought the camera for, are not really useful. 

So I am looking for an iAuto-P P&S. A small one. Much smaller than this beast of a 150 that I have. I'd still like to have some Zoom Power and nice image quality. I guess I'm partial to the Canon brand at this point. At one time I was a huge Olympus fan-boy but their Digital Offerings haven't moved me like their film stuff once ddid. 

That being said, I am open to the fact that, as a beginner-level photographer, I might not be getting the most out of my 150. Are there any tips or tricks to getting the most out of the small-sensor camera of should I abandon trying to be creative with such limited adjustment to aperture? Is a smaller P&S "worth it" and, if so, where do I start? There are seemingly hundreds of models by so many manufacturers, how do I pick one? Should I bump up to something like a Fuji X20 or Micro 4/3 camera? Should I just use my iPhone for casual shooting and pull out the Big Guns ( DSLRs) when I am "Photographing" things?


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## usayit (Oct 11, 2013)

Canon SX280HS

Most P&S will have the same limitations you describe.



another is the Sony WX300 (which is what I currently have for my P&S)


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