Compact deluxe

Back in the eighties and nineties I was sad that I didn't have the time or money to enjoy fine things such as the then-new category of cameras called "deluxe compact", spearheaded by the Contax T, and later followed by Contax T2 and T3, and the Nikon 35Ti. Maybe one or two others. (Anybody remember any?)

They were meant to be very compact cameras, but delivering full sized photographic quality. And they were lovely cameras.

But it just strikes me that they are really beaten soundly by the newest digital compacts, like the Sony and Canons I've talked about recently, in almost every respect.

These have zoom, they have autofocus (and pretty quick now), they can take hundreds of pictures per card, not 36 per film, there's no cost per picture, you get the pictures instantly, the image quality is as good, if not better... and they are half the size and one fourth of the price. Pretty darn amazing.

They even look and feel good, the best of them. I'd say they only have two downsides compared to the old ones: if you need a blurred background for portraits, the small sensor is limiting in this respect. (On the other hand, the fixed-focal-length of 35mm on the older cameras is not good for portraits either.) And you don't get the luxury feeling of owning a fine piece of equipment that others can't afford.

If the last bit is important to you, you can get the new Sigma DP1. But then you get a camera which is much slower and clumsier than the aforementioned ones which are way cheaper. Odd that. But I have a feeling that there'll be luxury compacts in the future without those drawbacks, for after all, now that even a $300 camera has stellar image quality and 13MP, the camera makers have to get new ideas for how to stand out from the crowd.