In my teens and early 20s, if I wanted to take a photo or video clip, a dedicated camera or camcorder was required. Then along came the camera phone. Gradually, over the past two decades, that device has become the dominant way we capture images, killing off the humble, pocket-sized digital compact almost entirely. Or has it?
Seemingly against all rhyme and reason, the popularity of the compact digicam is back on the rise, again; fuelled largely it seems by TikTok and social media posts gone viral.
But why would anyone, in 2025, want to return to using a three or five megapixel Nikon Coolpix compact from 2005? That was also the year I got married, and I remember our wedding photographer commenting that the six-megapixel resolution of the short-lived Fujifilm DSLR he was using was ‘all anyone would ever need.’
That proved to be untrue, but I certainly never envisaged anyone actively wanting to go back to cameras that technological improvements in the intervening years had surely rendered redundant.
Sure, I’m as nostalgic about what was, in its time, a snazzy piece of kit as the next person. Retro Electro Workshop is one of my favourite TV shows. But it’s clear the current compact camera comeback isn’t purely down to those 40 and 50 somethings among us who used them the first time around. We’re not on TikTok for starters and would look ridiculous if we were. No, if social media is to be believed, renewed interest is coming from Generation Z, not Generation X.
The popularity of vintage compact digital cameras seems down to the very fact that they aren’t a smartphone. And that the images produced are distinct from the output of a smartphone. Smartphone users – indeed those who have grown up only using camera phones – are discovering that using a dedicated camera requires a different mindset and a slower, more considered, yes ‘mindful’ approach to image creation. Which has long been part of the attraction of photography as a hobby, for those of us who’ve been around a bit longer.
It’s also not just eBay where you can find compact digital cameras these days. I’ve reviewed Kodak and Pentax branded compact cameras made in 2024 for Amateur Photographer and it seems maybe those brands who never entirely ditched compacts when the bigger camera manufacturers all did, are on to something. Or maybe they’ve just been lucky that whatever was in fashion once has rolled back around again as a new generation discovers it; a bit like the resurgence in vinyl records.
While like those self-same disks, compact cameras may never be mass market again, there seems to be enough curious enthusiasm out there to at least prompt a re-think from those manufacturers who previously thought they’d abandoned the format for good long ago.
Whether this is a brief reanimation of a form factor once considered dead, based on a trendy fad that will also once again pass in time, or a longer term, sustainable proposition remains to be seen.
But let’s face it, many compact cameras still look way cooler and handle better than our phones. Interest in the once fancifully named but now prescient sounding Nikon Coolpix, plus the more recent likes of the Fujifilm X100V and replacement ‘Six’ that has its maker cosying up to online influencers, only seems to confirm it.
Related reading:
- Fujifilm X100V and X100VI Alternatives? Best retro cameras
- 12 Best Second-hand Classic Compact Cameras
- Vintage digital cameras you should actually buy
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk
