p.1 #2 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
The fundamental issue here is not low light performance. It is whether any fixed lens camera is going to work for sports, which typically use longer focal lengths. (Or maybe the sport is poker? Or board games? ;-)
p.1 #3 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
gdanmitchell wrote:
The fundamental issue here is not low light performance. It is whether any fixed lens camera is going to work for sports, which typically use longer focal lengths. (Or maybe the sport is poker? Or board games? ;-)
Nikon Coolpix P1000. 3,000mm equivalent focal length and a 125x optical zoom. Now the AF on the P1000 is balls .....but if you need "reach"
p.1 #4 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
smw6230 wrote:
Nikon Coolpix P1000. 3,000mm equivalent focal length and a 125x optical zoom. Now the AF on the P100 is balls .....but if you need "reach"
That’s not a fixed lens camera. It is a zoom lens.
p.1 #5 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
The village pedant as unhelpful as ever.
Most fixed lens cameras are either m4/3 or APS-C and are already behind the 8 ball when it comes to high ISO/low light performance. Add to that the fact that this edge of the market has been largely ignored for years and you're left with just a handful of so-so models that don't really stand out. More often than not you're better off finding the smallest full frame camera you can with the most compact prime you can stomach. Once you do that, though, you've arrived at a pretty large setup compared to a pocketable point and shoot.
p.1 #8 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
chez wrote:
A fixed lens camera is a camera which you cannot remove the lens. Nothing to do with primes or zooms.
Exactly. The main issue here is that the lenses in compact cameras tend to be slow at longer focal lengths and sensors small, so noise is not so good. The smartphones have a powerful SoC so they can be very clever with NR.
The OP needs to identify the FL needed.
p.1 #9 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
Look up the definition of “fixed lens,” folks. :-) *
More importantly to our OP, see my early post helping him understand why a fixed lens camera is probably not what he wants.
RoamingScott wrote:
The village pedant as unhelpful as ever.
Yes. You are. ;-)
- - -
*
“A fixed lens camera is a type of camera that has a non-interchangeable lens with a set focal length, meaning it cannot zoom in or out. These cameras are often compact and designed for ease of use, making them suitable for casual photography.”
DPReview Wikipedia
To be fair, we have resorted to “fixed lens” as a shorthand for cameras like the X100vi and recent bodies from Sony (full frame) and Fujifilm (33x44), overlooking older and more specific terms such as “fixed focus lens” ( not “camera) and “fixed focal length lens”( also not “camera”).
Brouhaha aside, hopefully the OP can learn something useful. (Since this thread is starting to go off the rails, I PM’ed the OP and hope that helps.)
p.1 #10 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
I don't care what some uncited reference says about "fixed lens" vs "prime lens": a fixed-lens camera is one whose lens is fixed in place, and cannot be removed (barring maintenance). There are fixed-lens cameras with prime lenses and fixed-lens cameras with zoom lenses. Any definition that equates "fixed-lens" with prime lens, is incorrect.
p.1 #11 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
Getting too deep in the semantic weeds here. WikiPedia itself in internally inconsistent (see below). DPReview is going to use verbiage that aligns with market segmentation, serving the prominent photographic market segment that focuses on non-interchangeable lens cameras with prime lenses. That doesn't make their usage "definitional".
Per Wikipedia, my first digital camera was a "fixed lens" camera with azoom lens. Canon PowerShot Pro1
"The PowerShot Pro1 is a digital camera made by Canon, announced in February 2004 and was discontinued first quarter of 2006. It uses a Sony-built 2/3 in (17 mm) 8.3 megapixel CCD image sensor, which gives a usable image size of approximately 8.0 megapixels. It was the most expensive fixed-lens camera sold by Canon at the time, and thus the top of the PowerShot range. It was the first fixed lens designated a Canon L series lens, a designation normally reserved for the professional lines of their FD, EF, and RF lenses for interchangeable lens cameras.
It has a variable-angle two-inch, polycrystalline silicon, thin-film transistor, color liquid crystal display with approximately 235,000 pixels and a colour electronic viewfinder (EVF) with the same resolution. The lens has a zoom range of 7.2 to 50.8 mm, equivalent to 28 to 200 mm in 35 mm terms."
p.1 #12 · What fixed lens compact camera will give better low light, action-freezing performance than an iPhone 17 Pro Max?
jcolwell wrote:
I don't care what some uncited reference says about "fixed lens" vs "prime lens": a fixed-lens camera is one whose lens is fixed in place, and cannot be removed (barring maintenance). There are fixed-lens cameras with prime lenses and fixed-lens cameras with zoom lenses. Any definition that equates "fixed-lens" with prime lens, is incorrect.
Of course this is correct, and we can now stop engaging bad faith troglodytes that are really bad at what they do.
.....but if you need "reach" 