Digital cameras by and large are marketed in three flavors, that being point-and-shoot, prosumer and professional.
Point-and-shoot: Basic. Most functions are automatic and cannot be adjusted manually. Entry level, least expensive.
Prosumer: Similar to point-and-shoot but with extra added features such as manual focus. Mid-grade, middle-of-the-road expensive.
Professional: Full-bodied cameras with a detachable lens. High-grade, most expensive.
I’m finding that the more I look at low-end digital cameras, the point-and-shoots really are coming a long way with features and options. It makes one wonder whether there actually is a prosumer category any longer.
Example: The Canon PowerShot A470.
This is a point-and-shoot and under $100 new. It has features that were never available for its price point as little as two years ago, such as fixed focus point, 3.4x optical zoom (doesn’t sound like much but for a small body this is darn good), 7.1 megapixel, and even has continuous shooting at 1.9fps. Not bad at all.
For all intents and purposes, this is a prosumer camera. I honestly could not classify this as a point-and-shoot, even though it is.
What do you think?
Does the prosumer category even exist anymore with digital cameras, or have they all advanced so much that point-and-shoots are all prosumer-grade across the board?
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Yes, there are still prosumer-level cameras, like the Canon 40D and 50D. But they are DSLRs
A point-and-shoot, even a fancy one like the A470, is not a prosumer-level camera. No flash hotshoe and poor high ISO performance are just two reasons why this camera is not prosumer. Sure, it’s a great camera to put in your pocket when you don’t want to haul your DSLR around, but that doesn’t make it prosumer.
I used to like prosumer camera, but after saw my friend who use prosumer, i’m not like it beacuse it is not small at all and not good as DSLR.
Perhaps the cameras equipped on cell phones could be considered more of the point-and-shoot style since the options are limited by software on most phones. That would support the idea that digital cameras that are exclusively made and design for capturing images have arrived to the prosumer echelon.
What the sub $200 dollar market doesn’t have is a sensor that is worth anything. These sensors are teeny-tiny and back a bunch of megapixels into a tiny space, adding nothing much other than image size. Check out dpreview.com for some samples of 6Mp on a cheap camera, and 6Mp on a pro-sumer and you will see what I mean.
Then, there is the the lens. Pro-sumer lenses are miles away from cheap compacts in terms of image quality. Barrel distortion, purple fringing, etc. Even if the “zoom rating” is the same, be wary of cheap lenses. They lack any kind of aperture that is half decent. (they capture much less light as you zoom in)
Other than “features” the prosumer market still caters for those wanting higher quality and a better lens, but without going full on Digital-SLR.
What concerns me, is the errosion of the distinctions in the market. Soon, the $100 and $600 cameras will look the same on paper. Who will that help?
All true. Sub-$200 models do have inferior sensors and I’ve never been one to believe, “If it has more megapixels it must be good.”
I find the lens depends on model. Olympus seems to have better lenses on less expensive models compared to others – but obviously doesn’t compare to a full-bodied.
And yes it would be nice if manufacturers stuck to established descriptions. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish entry-level to mid-grade these days.
his isn’t even an intelligent discussion. First there is total neglect of data file shot– point and shoots are usually jpg only, but a serious camera shoots raw data. Samsung is the only company at moment which is offering a hybrid of pandp with external lens, but Kodak probably has one somewhere. As far as “prosuimer”– your kind of description is nothing that anybody serious about photography would want to read. Lots of extras rather glosses over major factors between a mediocre camera or a good workhorse camera to use professionally. The Canon 400, 450, 40D and 50D fall into this category. Strictly speaking they aren’t professional cameras because they aren’t full frame cameras, but they all use interchangeable lenses and all over 10MP and all shoot RAW which make them acceptable for professional agencies– bar microstock– I mean traditional Rights Managed photography at professional level. It’s not just the MP that’s important, but whether it shoots RAW– and what kinds of lenses are available. And if you were to dig very deep, you’d find that these cameras have problems reaching the professional status or standards because they are not full frame and part of their images or MP is actually made up through pixel duplication… and this causes “soft” images.
So the article is not very accurate– what makes a camera a good professional camera is the quality of image coming out of it, not the megapixel or the lots of extras… but whether it shoots raw, has interchangeable lenses and can pass critical quality control and inspection by a professional photo editor with the images blown to about 400 percent. When the edges are still clean, then the camera delivers. 400d is dslr, but not professional camera. It shoots RAW, has interchangeable lenses. I use it professionally, but that doesn’t make it a professional camera. It’s not. s… None of the powershots are prosumer cameras–they are all point and shoots– I don’t think the writer knows photography. PS– point and shoot. G7/G9 falls on the edge of prosumer, but the D300, 350, 400, 450, D40 are prosumer cameras. The D5 is professional. The “L” lenses are professional lenses, but they start in serious money.
Just to clarify, pogo, the OP is talking about a “prosumer” camera. Which is a professional camera that is essentially downgraded (in terms of critical lens and image quality) to the level a consumer might want to play with, take some great pictures, without wanting to drop $2000+ on equipment. The prosumer market *deliberately* avoids RAW and its cumbersome ilk, because of the -sumer suffix.
Now pogo, could you please go find a “professional photographer” who will tell you the base level is the D5? Or a professional agency who mandates such draconian quality control? Since it wasn’t available 3 years ago, could you tell me what on earth happened? Did the industry sit around and await this flawless 400% enlarged standard? You’re deluded if you think you need to shoot on a D5 to get published. I could Google an example a minute of this NOT being the case until I passed out.
Essentially, a great camera a good photographer does not make
Sure there is a prosumer category of cameras. What happens is that feature-wise, the point-and-shoot and prosumer categories have evolved in what they offer. I am in my third digital camera now. First I had a true point-and-shoot 3 MP camera that gave very good pictures but after some time I found it was limited for what I wanted to do. That was a Kodak DX4330. Later I got a Canon Powershot A610 (which I still have). This was a 5 MP camera with most of the features I wanted in a compact design I could fit in a pocket. That was a step higher in the category but I still consider that camera a point-and-shoot even though it has manual controls for most features. Then I recently got what I consider a truly “prosumer” camera: a Canon Powershot SX10 IS. Interestingly, feature wise this camera does not have many features that the A610 does not have except for large zoom (20X optical) and image stabilization. However, the larger zoom, larger sensor, and most importantly, a significantly larger lens puts this camera way ahead of the A610. The design also has a lot to do as the SX10 looks like a smallish DSLR. People look at you like you were a pro….
I don’t even want to talk about cell phone cameras. My old and now defunct Kodak DX4330 at 3 MP gave FAR FAR FAR FAR better pictures than the crappy 2 MP pictures that my cell phone provides. And the main reason for that is that the cell phone has a tiny peep hole lens as opposed to the significantly larger lens in the DX4330.
In the last time,5 years ago,I’ve used for prosumer digital camera.I think I like it becasue it has long zoom that appropriate for birds photography (in that time).But when I’ve used it for 2-3 months I found many disadvantage as very slow foucsing,difficult to manual focus and too small CCD that make pictures so small.
In the last I changed it to DSLR Camera that I like it very much.