focal length - How can I find a compact camera with an ultra-wide lens?

I'm looking to buy a compact camera, and having a very wide angle is important to me. I know that review sites often list the real focal length of the lens, but what I'm looking for is something that will show me current models with actually wide field of view. Is there such a resource?

Answer

There are several web sites which collect information on camera models and provide convenient ways to narrow down to specific options that fit what you need. My favorite is part of the the Neocamera site. You can use the Camera Search to narrow down the field by camera type and by focal length in 35mm equivalent terms.

"35mm equivalent" is a little confusing, but, simply, cameras have many different sensor sizes, and by normalizing all of the information to a standard, we can compare between different camera systems and know we're talking about the same field of view. (And, 35mm film camera frame size happens to be the industry standard)

So, the following search will show all current compact cameras with a widest focal length of at least 24mm-e, which is widely (um, pun intended; sorry) regarded as the cut-off where "ultra-wide" begins:

http://www.neocamera.com/search_camera.php?size=compact&focalwide=24

We can also try just a teensy bit wider, limiting to 23mm or wider, which as of mid-2013 gives no results:

http://www.neocamera.com/search_camera.php?size=compact&focalwide=23

Or, we can switch from compact to ultra-compact:

http://www.neocamera.com/search_camera.php?size=ultracompact&focalwide=24

which Neocamera defines as cameras up to 28mm at the thickest point. (Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to get the two searches in a combined report, but that's probably okay because there's too many to wade through in one look anyway.)

You could also do a similar search on DP Review, and while their interface is a little more modern and slick, I actually find it more unwieldy. (Checkboxes on the top of the page make sliders appear or disappear down below, and then you set those sliders to change the cameras which appear on a list below that, and then in that list you have to dig further to get to camera details. On the other hand, you can include multiple camera types at once, and it's easier if you want, for example, to know what cameras were released between 1994 and 1998.)