after hanging arround in #photographers for many years i thought it was time for me to write something about "point and shoot" cameras since there seems to be a lot of confusion about them.

as you might know there are a lot of different "kinds" of cameras and i am not talking about "brands" now. the kinds you usually hear about are the so called "point and shoot" (p&s) cameras and the "single lens reflex" (slr) cameras.

so... what is point and shoot really? point and shoot basically means that you grab your camera and press the shutter release button and tada, you have a picture. so, a point and shoot camera is a camera that does not allow you to pick any manual settings, like aperture or shutterspeed. the funny thing is that most people consider compact cameras to be point and shoot cameras, they couldn't be more wrong! most compact cameras do allow you to adjust aperture, shutterspeed and some even allow you to use manual focus!

so, next time you go to the store to buy a camera you are not going to ask "how many megapixels does it have?" but "does it have aperture and shutter priority?" and you don't have to get an slr camera to get manual functions!

i often hear people who think they look more prefessional with a slr camera... yes, you probably will look more professional, you will also look more professional if you drive a porsche to the supermarket... is it functional? no. most people who have photography as a hobby will never need more then a compact camera, there are even a lot of professional photographers who choose to shoot with a compact camera and i honestly can not tell if a photo is shot with a compact or a slr camera unless i can see the exif data ofcourse and fyi; the argument that slr cameras have bigger sensors is also hardly true anymore.

bottom line always remains... a professional camera does not make you a professional or a better photographer.

cameras are just black boxes with a hole in it, a lens in front of that hole and inside a light sensitive medium like film or a sensor.