Best Cameras in the UK (2026)

The ZV-E10 sells in volume for a straightforward reason: it puts an APS-C sensor and Sony's E-mount behind a body designed to be simple, and E-mount has the widest selection of lenses of any mirrorless system, new and second-hand. It is a video-first design — fully articulating screen, strong face and eye autofocus, a microphone input, and no viewfinder at all. For filming yourself it is close to ideal. For landscape work in bright sun, the missing viewfinder is a real limitation. It ranks first because it is the best entry into a system rather than a dead end, and because its owner record on Amazon UK is the deepest in this category.

Micro Four Thirds uses a smaller sensor than APS-C, and everything gets smaller with it — bodies, and lenses especially. For travel and street photography, where a camera you actually carry beats one left at home, that trade is often the right one. Unlike the ZV-E10 at the top of this list, this one has an electronic viewfinder, which makes it far easier to use in bright conditions, and it includes in-body stabilisation and a kit lens in the price. It ranks third because the smaller sensor limits it in poor light against the cameras above, and because Micro Four Thirds has a narrower lens future than E-mount. As a complete, portable package it is the most balanced buy here.

This is the pick that does something no phone and no other camera here can. It is waterproof without a housing, shockproof to a stated 2.1 metres, and freezeproof, which covers swimming, snorkelling, skiing, climbing and taking photographs in weather that would end any other camera on this page. The sensor is small — 12MP in a compact body — so image quality in poor light is the weakest here. That is entirely beside the point. The comparison is not against the Sony bodies above, it is against not having a camera at all because you could not risk one. It also has a genuinely good close-focus mode, which makes it popular for rockpools and macro work.

DSLRs are a shrinking category and this one is on the list for two specific reasons. An optical viewfinder shows the scene through the lens with no lag and no battery drain, which some photographers strongly prefer, and DSLR battery life is far longer than mirrorless because the viewfinder is a mirror rather than a screen. The second reason is lenses. Canon's EF and EF-S mounts have been in production for decades, so the second-hand market is enormous and cheap — and for someone building a kit slowly, that matters more than the body. It ranks fifth because mirrorless is where development is happening: this is a mature system rather than a growing one, and the video is clearly behind the cameras above.

Sixty times optical zoom in a single fixed lens is the specification here, and nothing else on this page comes close. At the long end it reaches subjects that would need a lens costing several times the whole camera on any of the system bodies above. The compromise is the sensor, which is small, so image quality falls away in poor light and detail at maximum zoom is softer than the range suggests. Bridge cameras have always made this trade. For birdwatching, aircraft, sport from the stands or anything else at distance, it does a job no phone can approach and no affordable system camera can either.

The TZ line has been the standard travel compact for years: a long zoom range in a body that genuinely fits a pocket, with a Leica-branded lens and 4K video. Against the FZ82D above it trades half the zoom range for a camera you will actually carry, which for holidays and city walking is usually the better bargain. Against a phone it offers real optical reach rather than a digital crop. It carries the lowest owner rating on this page, which is worth weighing — the TZ range's small sensor and rising price have drawn criticism as phone cameras have improved. It is here because pocketable optical zoom remains something a phone cannot do.