There has been a lot of talk lately about point-and-shoot cameras being repopularized by the Gen Z crowd. The photography press says influencers on popular social media sites are buying them up on the used market, then using them to create content that they then hashtag #Digicam.

The only working point-and-shoot camera I still own is the Olympus FE-5020, which my wife bought for me for Christmas in 2012. All our other point-and-shoot cameras died long ago, mostly because Abby and I used them all the time, and they just wore out.

The 2012 smart phone scene was quite different than it is today, with the built-in cameras barely able to make selfies. Abby and I both had Olympus point-and-shoot cameras at the time, and used them as often as everyone uses smart phone cameras today.

I loved the FE-5020 for its very slim form factor. It is so small that I can tuck it into a shirt pocket and take it anywhere.

Here are some thoughts on why we liked them, as well as things we didn’t love about them.

Advantages

If someone runs off with your point-and-shoot camera, or if you drop it into a manhole or off a cliff, you won’t lose your entire life and identity like you might with a smart phone.

Although you were just buying a camera (vs buying a whole lifestyle with a smart phone), they were cheaper overall, and the image quality tended to be more robust than the over-processed images from smart phones.

When using it, you felt more like you were “being a photographer.”

Disadvantages

Most point-and-shoot cameras aren’t connected to cloud storage, so if you’ve gotten accustomed to having everything backed up automatically, you will need to adjust your workflow.

New point-and-shoot cameras are hard to find on the market or in stores because camera makers were driven to lower production as Apple and Samsung put better and better cameras in our phones. There are some on the used market, but prices have shot up.

Despite the advantages, one of the most obvious reasons smart phone cameras got so popular is that they are the one thing we all grab on the way out the door. The old slogan says that the only camera that matters is the one you have with you, and that’s absolutely true.

Periodically, I will pull my FE-5020 our of its bag, charge the batteries, and try to motivate myself to use it, but I seldom do. Maybe I’ll set it next to my keys in the next few days, and make myself fold it into my workflow, and see what happens!