Can you define a P&S?

[loquax ludens]

I think that "Point and Shoot" describes a type of camera, not a process or a style of shooting. The basic defining characteristics are that it must be a relatively compact camera with a non-interchangeable lens that is designed to be simple and easy for an unsophisticated person to use. It may have fully manual exposure controls, or aperture or shutter priority exposure modes, or scene or situation-based exposure settings, or any and all of those, but it must also have a fully automated exposure system so that the user can shoot without worrying about exposure at all.

Most recent (last 20 years) P&S cameras, whether film or digital, have a zoom lens, auto-focus system, and a built-in flash, but none of those characteristics are defining of the type. Single use film cameras that you can still buy at the drug store pre-loaded with 35mm film usually have no-focus non-zoom lenses and fully automated exposure, but they fit the essential characteristics of a point-and-shoot camera.

I can set my Canon AE-1P or my EOS 3 for full program mode, point it, maybe focus, compose, and shoot. The latter has autofocus capability, the former does not, but neither one becomes a point and shoot camera when used in full program mode. They aren't compact and they have interchangeable lenses. I don't think any SLR could be compact enough to be considered a point and shoot camera.

Being compact alone is not a sufficient characteristic either. My Minox IIIs is far more compact than any P&S camera I've ever seen. It has a non-interchangeable fixed aperture lens. However, both shutter speed and guess-focus distance must be set manually. It misses the P&S boat because it has no automatic exposure capability.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Perhaps we need a new category "PP&S" for pure point and shoot. Luckily we can still keep the thread going by arguing about whether there should be a comma in the abbreviation...

Regards, David

 

[btgc]

This is quite interesting thread...reminds me kindergarten discussions on "is banana toothpastte really more tasty than plain peppermint t.p. ??" 😀

Well, I understand that great masters finally arrive to most basic questions and find their own answers may differ from well known answers. The simpler question or answer, the greatest master.

 

[dave lackey]

I think it is more than kindergarten blabber.

Everytime I go onto KEH looking at specific smaller sized cameras, it is confusing to try and find certain Leica cameras. Is a Digilux 2 a point and shoot? A V-lux 40 a point and shoot? etc.

Then, I go looking for some small film cameras, any brand, and where exactly is it?

Forums such as this one have a category for point and shoot cameras yet a bunch of cameras have separate forums that would fit in the P&S category. The Leica X2 is included in the P&S...why? Shouldn't a Barnack be a P&S?

It is all blurry, IMO.

And then, there are those who disparage the typical P&S cameras we think of and still those who disparage even using P or A on a DSLR.

Strange days indeed.😛

 

[dave lackey]

So, why a thread on defining a P&S?

IMO, with each passing year, there will be changes in technology and marketing that will shift away from large cameras and lenses and towards "smallness". Towards simpler cameras and not necessarily lower tech.

It appears to me that we are in a highly transitional period that will not likely see a huge growth in DSLRs that are as large as they are now and weigh the equivalent of three bricks.

How many women buy DSLRs? Over 50%, under 50%? Do we really expect them to continue to buy bulky cameras just to shoot the brats playing soccer or birthday parties? With all the other stuff they have to carry whilst the husband carries nothing? I see this all the time with my family and the ladies herding the kids, carrying a purse and everything else necessary for the particular outing. The husband carrys nothing.

 

[btgc]

I think it is more than kindergarten blabber.

How it were said - Out of the mouth of children, the truth is spoken?

My take is that after great struggle people arrive to simplicity, where wisdom and truth are embodied in everything and everywhere. Words become noise, emptiness becomes form and every effort to define makes us farther from what we have in our minds.

I feel your pain and understand (hope so) your findings. Water falls from sky and then evaporates to repeat cycle again and again, so photographer returns to his roots to revisit basics of basics.

Next format will phase out current format to be replaced by another format. So also technologies will change each other. Photographers have gone, are going and will go through many ways of taking pictures, capture captures and shoot shots - just to return to basics, finally.

In the end there will be picture, be it print, projection, file or 3D hologram - no matter how made, how preserved and how displayed. There have been, there is and there will be a picture. A PICTURE.

 

[dave lackey]

How it were said - Out of the mouth of children, the truth is spoken?

My take is that after great struggle people arrive to simplicity, where wisdom and truth are embodied in everything and everywhere. Words become noise, emptiness becomes form and every effort to define makes us farther from what we have in our minds.

I feel your pain and understand (hope so) your findings. Water falls from sky and then evaporates to repeat cycle again and again, so photographer returns to his roots to revisit basics of basics.

Next format will phase out current format to be replaced by another format. So also technologies will change each other. Photographers have gone, are going and will go through many ways of taking pictures, capture captures and shoot shots - just to return to basics, finally.

In the end there will be picture, be it print, projection, file or 3D hologram - no matter how made, how preserved and how displayed. There have been, there is and there will be a picture. A PICTURE.

Agreed! I personally love the simple life, something that I never aspired to just a few years ago. Getting older has something special about it, I suppose.

This last week, I have been working with some older Nikon cameras (950 and 995) and it brought back bad memories of the D2H, D2X menus and settings. After three days, I still haven't got the cameras set where I want them.

The X1...night and day difference. Give me simplicity any day and lately, anything larger than an M body is just too large for me.:angel:

 

[Aristophanes]

My Fuji Instax is a point and shoot but nowhere near compact.

P&S was a form factor category from a certain era that has now been incorporated as a mode in camera designs of all sizes aimed at most categories of users. That's the whole point of the "green" setting on the Mode dial.

 

[loquax ludens]

My Fuji Instax is a point and shoot but nowhere near compact.

Which one do you have? The ones I've seen are compact relative to the film format. "Compact" has to be understood in that context.

P&S was a form factor category from a certain era that has now been incorporated as a mode in camera designs of all sizes aimed at most categories of users. That's the whole point of the "green" setting on the Mode dial.

Definitely not. P&S is not a form factor. It describes a set of characteristics. A DLSR with a "green" setting on the Mode dial is not a P&S camera.

 

[daveleo]

Is there a reason that "we" must agree on this definition?
I think not.

 

[driver]

I found this on the internet, so it must be true 🙄

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-and-shoot_camera

 

[unixrevolution]

I beat this dead horse a while ago on PentaxForums:

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/...cameras/160418-what-what-not-point-shoot.html

To be concise, I think it varies, but a P&S has at least one of these characteristics:

1. Little or no control of aperture and/or shutter speed
2. Zone Focusing
3. Autofocus only or minimal manual focus control
4. Compact size/lightweight
5. Fixed lens

I can think of no camera I'd consider a P&S that doesn't have at least one of these characteristics.

Kodak Retina: Has 2 and 3. Despite the manual exposure controls, point and shoot.

Yashica Electro 35: Has 1 (for shutter anyway...it's Aperture Priority AE) and 5

Pentax Q: #4, posssibly 2 as well.

Are there cameras with one of these characteristics that are NOt point and shoots? Definitely. But in order to be a P&S, it must have at least one. Preferably 2.

 

[Sparrow]

I beat this dead horse a while ago on PentaxForums:

http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/...cameras/160418-what-what-not-point-shoot.html

To be concise, I think it varies, but a P&S has at least one of these characteristics:

1. Little or no control of aperture and/or shutter speed
2. Zone Focusing
3. Autofocus only or minimal manual focus control
4. Compact size/lightweight
5. Fixed lens

I can think of no camera I'd consider a P&S that doesn't have at least one of these characteristics.

Kodak Retina: Has 2 and 3. Despite the manual exposure controls, point and shoot.

Yashica Electro 35: Has 1 (for shutter anyway...it's Aperture Priority AE) and 5


Pentax Q: #4, posssibly 2 as well.

Are there cameras with one of these characteristics that are NOt point and shoots? Definitely. But in order to be a P&S, it must have at least one. Preferably 2.

... mju II has all five, and an annoying flash that switches itself on every time one closes it ... and it's obviously a point and shoot because one simply points it and shoots it, anything that one points, adjusts and then shoots clearly isn't a point and shoot is it?

 

[David Hughes]

Is there a reason that "we" must agree on this definition?
I think not.

Hi,

Well, yes, we have to agree what the words mean. Look at the words "fixed lens" that a lot of people use for, a, non-interchangeable and, b, fixed focus and, c, both AF and non-interchangeable.

To an extent it's like arguing about what value we give pi or the square root of 2, etc. I'm in favour of precision.

Regards, David

 

[dave lackey]

Hi,

Well, yes, we have to agree what the words mean. Look at the words "fixed lens" that a lot of people use for, a, non-interchangeable and, b, fixed focus and, c, both AF and non-interchangeable.

To an extent it's like arguing about what value we give pi or the square root of 2, etc. I'm in favour of precision.

Regards, David

Spoken like a true gearhead....bravo!:angel:

 

[Godfrey]

A P&S is any relatively simple camera designed after 1980 (usually a camera that has AF) that a Leicaphile wishes to denigrate.

;-)

A P&S to me is a compact camera that requires little in way of controls other than to point it in the right direction and press the button when appropriate. My Leica Minizoom was a perfect P&S: rugged plastic, reasonably priced, nice lens, nothing truly useful in controls beyond pointing it and releasing the shutter. Easy to use and carry.

I and another friend of mine who also bought one used to refer to it as a "plastic-pig-**** Leica", but it took darn good photographs. Carried it as my daily user for a year or two.

 

[ElectroWNED]

Olympus XA

🙂

 

[btgc]

Olympus XA

🙂

That's almost manual camera - except shutter speed 🙂
You mean, self developed film means using caffenol, ureanol or at least, homebrewed developer and fixer?

 

[David Hughes]

Spoken like a true gearhead....bravo!:angel:

Hi,

To the pure, all things are pure. And the pure are getting fewer.

Regards, david

 

[daveleo]

. . . .

To an extent it's like arguing about what value we give pi or the square root of 2, etc. I'm in favour of precision.

Regards, David

The irony is killing me.

Both pi and the square root of 2 are irrational numbers that can never be determined exactly, and that in fact was my implied point . . . we will never agree on a precise definition of "P&S".