I still remember the first compact camera I had. My dad gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday, and I have to say that it was the pride and joy of my life - for exactly five months. After that I have no idea what happened to it, and frankly I have to say at that time I wasn't really all that bothered about it either.

The joys of photography still hadn't caught my attention and there were more interesting things for me to do at the time. However, it must also be said that when I finally did gain more than an average interest in photography, the first camera that I went out and bought was a compact camera. And a more worthwhile purchase, I have never made.

Since to all intents and purposes I was very much an amateur in the photography field, (my first compact camera at age fourteen notwithstanding), I was able to experiment and fiddle around as much as I wanted to. And since at that time I wasn't yet into the expenses of positive films, and since negative film rolls were generally inexpensive, I was able to pretty much do what I wanted.

The only restriction that I had, if at all, was the cost of developing the film, which I solved by creating my own darkroom and developing the negatives myself. However that may be, you'll be glad to know that the compact camera is probably the best camera for when you're starting out.

And since nowadays you're more likely to go for the compact camera, your life just got considerably easier, and your photography just became considerably more enhanced. You know that you don't have the expenses of processing to contend with, and with the ease of digital, if you're still very much a novice then you can learn your way quickly and easily through photography 101.