Lensrentals’ most rented-out point-and-shoot isn’t a point-and-shoot at all

The Leica Q2 certainly has a built-in lens, but does that really make it a ‘point-and-shoot?’ We’d say not, and that making that distinction helps illuminate the niches in which there’s still room for compacts to do interesting things. Photo: Dan Bracaglia

Camera and lens rental company Lensrentals has published a list of its most popular ‘point-and-shoot’ cameras, but the thing we found most interesting is how few of the cameras on the list would sensibly be described as such.

We recognize that, for many people, the term ‘point-and-shoot’ is synonymous with the term ‘compact camera,’ but we’ve always felt that there are plenty of compact cameras that encourage or reward a more hands-on approach to their photography than simply pointing at a subject and pressing the shutter button.

And it’s interesting to note that these more photographer-focused cameras are the ones that dominate Lensrentals’ list. Now, of course, you could argue that it’s only keen photographers that go to the effort of renting a camera, but arguably they’re also the only audience that still buys dedicated cameras of any type.

Of the list, it’s only really the Olympus TG-6 or Nikon P1000 (whose appeal in both cases is about something other than just simplicity of operation) and, perhaps, the Sony RX100 VII that one might sensibly expect to be simply pointed and shot.

If anything, we feel the Lensrentals list just further confirms that the point-and-shoot is dead: the desire to point-and-shoot is readily satisfied by smartphones. But this doesn’t (quite) mean the end of interesting compacts.

Read Lensrentals’ blog post about the most rented point-and-shoot cameras of 2022