Yes, the selfie is firmly entrenched in the realm of mobile phone camera culture, but that does not mean your cell phone is the best tool for the job—it’s just usually the most convenient.
Do you want your selfies to always be captured on tiny, tiny sensors through tiny, tiny lenses? You might, at first, say, “Yes, that is fine.” But think about it for a few minutes and realize that you want your beloved friends, adoring family members, and admiring fans to enjoy your self-portraits in the highest possible quality—captured by a capable camera that is both practical and versatile. Right?
The popularity of the selfie has revolutionized photography and the self-portrait. The selfie has changed how we interact—or rather, don’t interact—with others when we want to include ourselves in photographs. And the selfie has even dictated camera design, forcing camera manufacturers to figure out how to get LCD screens to face in the same direction as the lens. Crazy, right? Yes, that is right. The selfie has changed camera design. Name one other type of photograph with that kind of influence.
Here are 10 cameras that you might want to consider adding to your everyday carry that not only allow you to get better-than-the-average-selfie selfies, but also allow you to take great photos of other things besides your beautiful mug!
Fujifilm X70 Digital Camera With a fixed focal-length lens and an APS-C-sized sensor, this X70 point-and-shoot from Fujifilm is comfortable tackling street shooting, fine art, as well as selfie duties. Besides, it looks great with a retro-rangefinder shape. When taking a selfie, don’t you want to be holding and looking at a camera as good looking as the subject?
Samsung NX3300 Mirrorless Digital Camera Sporting an insane amount of Samsung mobile phone technology, such as NFC, the NX3300 also has a ton of software features to make your selfies stand out! Trigger the camera with the made-for-selfie Wink Shot mode and feel free to use Beauty Face or Best Face mode, as well, to help you look your best. The entire Internet is gonna see this selfie!
Panasonic DMC-GX8 Mirrorless Micro Four Thirds Digital Camera If you haven’t learned this by now, know that a camera with interchangeable lenses is perfectly capable of taking great selfies. And, because you can change lenses, you have a camera on hand that can perform myriad other photographic tasks. The Micro Four Thirds system is compact, lightweight, and supremely capable at capturing great images, as well as your best selfies.
Pentax K-S2 DSLR Camera One of the smaller and more stylish DSLRs on the market, the Pentax K-S2, when equipped with the right lens, will be more than happy to capture your smiling face from the end of your arm. Not only that, with a battery of Pentax lenses to choose from, you will have much more than a one-trick-pony as your favorite camera.
Nikon 1J5 Mirrorless Digital Camera With the Nikon 1J5, we have the versatility of the interchangeable-lens camera with a size and portability that rivals the point-and-shoot camera. Flip up the screen, take a selfie. Flip it down and turn the camera around to capture great travel shots, scenic vistas, and more. Change lenses and shoot sports, macro—whatever you want. Flexibility is good.
Canon PowerShot N2 Digital Camera While not the most capable point-and-shoot in the Canon quiver, the PowerShot N2 is definitely a camera you will enjoy looking at as you capture your self-image. The point-and-shoot has to compete with mobile devices, so in that vein, its desirability can be enhanced by a gorgeous design. The N2 is a great looking little camera with a unique design that can take selfies, as well as many other kinds of great photos. You can see the N2 being the honored guest of many selfie parties.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 IV Digital Camera If you are in denial about the fact that the selfie now dictates camera design, look no further than the latest version of the incredibly capable Sony DSC-RX100—the IV. In response to customers loudly (I guess) demanding the ability to create selfies, the third and fourth versions of this flagship Sony point-and-shoot now come with flip-up LCD screens, while the rest of the camera design remains virtually unchanged. Because it wasn’t originally designed to take photos of your face at close range, it is more than capable of capturing numerous kinds of photos, too!
Olympus Stylus Tough TG-870 Digital Camera The tough camera is one of the coolest sub-genres of photography tech but, try as it might, it hasn’t been very selfie-friendly—no flip screens—and that is a shame because you want to show people how cool you look when doing cool things. Enter the Olympus TG-870. Somehow, the engineers at Olympus figured out how to make a flip-up LCD on a camera that is still water-, dust-, freeze-, and crushproof. Problem solved; although I probably wouldn’t try to crush it with the LCD screen tilted in any position! Oh, and if others are looking cool with you, the 21mm equvalent lens will help you capture two to four others in the frame!
GoPro HERO4 While not a traditional selfie machine, the ubiquitous leader of the action camera world, the GoPro HERO4, seems to shine brightest when talented extreme sports and action videographers include their own faces in the frame. It is cool to see majestic mountains from the helmet of a skier, skydiver, or wing-suiter but, add the photographer’s face, and the human element seems to make the videos even more compelling.
Ricoh Theta S Unless you fire it remotely using a mobile device, or hold it directly over your head, it is nearly impossible to take a photo with the Ricoh Theta S that is not a selfie. Because it has a spherical 360-degree field of view, with the Theta S in hand, you are certainly going to be capturing some part of you in the all-encompassing frame. Your job is to figure out how to creatively include your presence inside the all-seeing Theta S images.
