The lens is basically the most important part of your camera. If you have a brilliant sensor but a terrible lens, you aren’t going to get quality photographs. SLR cameras invariably have interchangeable lenses, this gives you the opportunity to screw up your lens choice, or also to make fantastic choices. Most other cameras have a permanently attached lens of some sort. These days, most digital cameras have a permanent zoom lens. The range of these zooms can vary dramatically, as can the quality.
What makes a good lens?
In my (david‘s) opinion, there are two aspects to making ‘good’ photos. Aesthetics and technical quality. The lens you use can affect both of these. On the technical side, a good lens will be sharp and focus quickly to allow you to get images in focus. Also, a wide maximum aperture allows you to focus and photograph in dimmer light without a flash. On the aesthetics, focal length is king. If you want to exaggerate perspective, there is no substitute for a good wide angle. If you want to flatter someone’s features and throw the background out of focus - a nice long lens is your friend. Also in aesthetics, a wide maximum aperture allows you to get the background you want.
So when you are buying a digital camera with a permanent lens, you should think about what you will be photographing. For instance the Ricoh R6 camera (and friends) have a 28-200mm lens, which is a fantastic range. 28mm is quite wide and perfect for landscapes, architecture, and getting in close to the action. 200mm is long. Not cricket photography long, but still pretty damn long. Great for picking details from a distance, again good for landscapes. And sweet for sports and portraits. On the downside for thie camera, the maximum aperture is 3.3-5.1, which is kind of narrow. It’s useful, but we can do better.
Consider the Panasonic Lumix FZ20. Admittedly, this is an old camera. But the lens is a constant aperture f/2.8. This is awesome, allowing focusing and photographing in dim light. It is also massively long (432mm, wow!). But you pay for this at the wide end - 36mm isn’t so wide so you are a bit limited in that respect.
Another thing to consider is that the longer the zoom range, the more likely that the lens sharpness isn’t so flash. You can get long zoom range lenses that are super sharp, but they get pretty expensive. The sharpest lenses have only one focal length, but this is impractical for a permanent lens camera. So if you don’t need a long zoom range, you might want to consider a camera that is known for its sharp lens, like the Fuji Finepix F31fd (great name). This has a limited zoom range, and not so wide maximum aperture, but because the lens doesn’t have to perform at any extremes, it can do what it does very well.
