Santa Monica Pier, Photographed with a Sony DSC-P200 Point and Shoot Digital Camera In the comments to a recent article on Photographic Mistakes and in many emails I received, people have always asked me about Cameras, specifically point and shoot (P&S) cameras.
Although I am a big fan of Canon's Digital SLR Cameras, I bought a Sony DSC-P200 last year for "experimentation" (camera toss anyone?) and so that I could have a small carry-around camera.
I often find myself on a trail somewhere, with the gear tucked away in my photo backpack, headed for a place I wish to photograph. When I get home, I often got the pictures I wanted, but I didn't have any pictures of the trail or sights I encountered on the way that I didn't pull the camera out of the bag for.
Having a small Point and Shoot Camera with me in my pocket doesn't add much weight, but would have allowed me to capture all those things and tell a complete story.
I travel quite a bit and sometimes I write about it on this Travel Portal. Having all these pictures taken, would give me the opportunity to tell a much better story about the hardships of the trail, the steepness of a climb or whatever a traveler might find interesting.
A point and shoot camera is a small camera that doesn't require a lot of adjustments. You point and shoot and you can trust that the automatic will work reasonably well. Although most of these cameras also have options for manual settings, they are usually cumbersome (menus) to set.
The simplicity of these cameras makes them a favorite for people to "snap" pictures quickly without bothering about camera settings. Birthday parties, group shots, vacation stills to collect some memories without having to carry around a big and heavy camera is what Point and Shoots are designed for.

Can you take quality photos with a Point and Shoot Camera?

This is probably one of the most asked questions.
Let me be perfectly straight. I have probably taken no more then a couple hundred photos with that camera while I didn't have the SLR, so the examples shown might not be the most artistic, but it is always the Photographer who makes the pictures in the first place, while the camera is just the tool he/she uses to get the job done.
A SLR has certain advantages (shorter shutter lag, less noise, more manual control, mirror lockup, interchangeable lenses) but many situations don't require those and you can study composition with just about any camera.

Telling a complete story

Sometimes I find myself in places that I didn't bother bringing a camera in the first place. When I visited a museum in Sacramento, I didn't bother bringing the camera along (whats more boring then museum shots?). Fortunately I brought the Sony P&S, because I really like the photograph of the cans.

Don't be intimidated by people with heavy gear!

Cans photographed with the Sony DSC-P200