The best compact digital pocket/purse camera
What is the best compact digital camera on the market today? When it comes to choosing between a Canon, Nikon, Leica, or some other major camera manufacturer, it becomes more of a personal preference then comparing brands. I started my photography experience sixty years ago with an old Kodak 620 box camera. Over the years I have acquired and used cameras made by Canon, Leica, Mamiya, Honeywell, Bell & Howell, and several other manufacturers, but have finally chosen Nikon as my camera of choice because of their rugged construction and unbeatable record for dependability. Although I primarily shoot with a digital SLR, I do have and use several compact digital point-and-shoot Nikons as well.
In my humble opinion, the best pocket/purse digital camera is the Nikon COOLPIX S52 because it packed the power and features of a professional grade camera in a very tiny package. The COOLPIX S52 measures 3.6” X 2.3” X 0.8” and weighs a mere 4.4 Oz.
The S52 with its 9-mega pixel resolution can produce high-quality 11” X 14” prints suitable for salon display. Although it lacks an eyelevel viewfinder, its large, 3-inch diagonal, LCD display is more than adequate for composing and focusing any shots you might want to take, even in bright sunlight.
With an adjustable ISO (film speed setting) of 100 to 3200, you can shoot in just about any lighting conditions from bright sunlight to almost total darkness.
Its 6.3 to 18.9mm, f3.3-4.2 3X optical zoom lens, the equivalent to a 38-114mm 35mm zoom lens will all you will ever need to shoot everything from close-ups to long shots.
The S52 with its auto focus system. its two pre-programmed exposure modes and its eleven pre-programmed scene modes (portrait, night portrait, sport, landscape, beach/snow, party, dusk/dawn, sunset, night landscape, museum, fireworks display)you can simply point and shoot and get perfect pictures every time.
The S52 also comes with six pre-programmed flash modes (slow sync, red eye reduction, red eye reduction with slow sync, flash cancel/flash off, auto, auto with red eye reduction, and anytime flash modes) which make taking perfect exposed pictures with the internal flash unit a snap too.
The S52 also has seven white balance settings to make all your shots picture perfect. You can select the setting that matches the lighting that you are shooting with-incandescent, fluorescent, daylight, cloudy, flash, auto, or white balance preset.
The S52 has a plethora of other professional features, far too many to enumerate in this brief Factoid.
The COOLPIX S52 at an average street price of $250 isn’t the cheapest compact digital camera by far but it is by far the best digital camera for the money.
