Last week on the Underground, I stepped into a time portal. I sat down, looked at the seats across from me, and saw two young women comparing photos on the rear LCDs of their point-and-shoot digital compact cameras. Like it was 2007 or something.
Of course, I hadn’t actually stepped into a time portal — the news is everywhere that digital compact cameras are coming back, despite having been pronounced dead multiple times in the tech press. Since 2023, the overall trend for interest in cheap digital compacts has been going up and up. In 2024, research by used retailer Music Magpie showed that Google searches for Nikon’s Coolpix cameras had increased by more than a whopping 8,500%, with TikTok searches up by 700%. (Always worth seeing if we have any secondhand versions up for sale here)
So what’s driving this retro fever? It’s partly due to trends on TikTok, with users embracing the lo-fi aesthetic and kitschy retro styling of these older cameras (there’s a reason that the most popular models tend to be pink). The fact that celebs like Kendall Jenner, Addison Rae and Bella Hadid have been seen using them has also helped.
@dillaprb LUCU BANGET CANDY PINK😭😫💕✨ #fyp #foryoupage #digicam #digitalcamera #camera #haul #review #pink #pinkcamera #2010 #canon ♬ 3 minutes cooking song(863632) - furufuru
There’s also, of course, the nostalgia factor. People who grew up in the immediate post-Y2K era are coming of age, and enjoy recapturing the look and feel of the MySpace era. In an interview with Dazed, Olivia V, the creator of the @indiesleaze Instagram account, suggested that “The type of photos these cameras take look the most similar to MySpace aesthetics and that kind of paparazzi, party photography aesthetic that dominated at the time.”
I’m a bit older than that generation, but I get it. I remember going for nights out in the late noughties and early 2010s, and someone would always bring a digital compact with its horrible flash, and the next morning they’d upload an album of 39 grainy, ugly, red-eye-riddled photos to Facebook. In the era of Facetune, ring-lights and high-resolution selfie cameras, it’s not surprising that some people are gravitating towards a grainier, murkier aesthetic. It feels more authentic, while also offering a similar nostalgia-hit that the previous generation got from shooting on film, but without the inconvenience and the ongoing expense.
Of course, it’s important to keep things in perspective. Trends like these do tend to get overstated by marketers looking to push a narrative, and by news outlets hungry for clicks. Anecdote and personal experience can also play a part — it’s easy to draw sweeping conclusions from isolated events just because they happened to you personally, like if you saw a couple of young women with digital compacts on the Underground.
I asked the Wex commercial team to dig into our own data on the compact camera revival. They confirmed that while we have seen increased interest in digital compacts year-on-year into 2025, the biggest driver hasn’t been the lo-fi cheap aesthetic compacts. The biggest driver by a margin has been the Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III.
A perennially popular premium compact, the PowerShot G7 X Mark III has been a big hit with YouTubers thanks to its 4K quality, relative affordability and its ability to livestream. Its Bluetooth connectivity means it can be app-controlled via a tablet or smartphone, and it’s got a pretty decent on-board microphone, which is helpful for keeping costs low as you can get solid sound without needing to buy an extra mic.
So, while point-and-shoot compact cameras are more popular than they’ve been for quite some time, it looks like more sophisticated cameras are still the go-to for anyone who’s serious about improving their photography or video.
About the Author
Jon Stapley is a London-based freelance writer and journalist who covers photography, art and technology. When not writing about cameras, Jon is a keen photographer who captures the world using his Olympus XA2. His creativity extends to works of fiction and other creative writing, all of which can be found on his website www.jonstapley.com
