Photography

For your price point, used market is definitely the way to go.

A lot of the older Lumix compacts are quite good and have an interchangeable lens mount, like the GX800/GX850/GF9, but the prices of those will vary depending on where you live. Many of the Sony bodies can be had for quite cheap too, and those have a vast ecosystem to good third-party lenses, like the A6x00 series (A6000, 6100, 6300, 6400, etc.)

Interchangeable lens cameras should be preferred for an equally priced fixed lens option, as you get a lot more versatility!

the pictures don't have to be as good as a Galaxy S25, but still ideally decent quality as I said.

Don't worry, any dedicated camera will have better photo quality than a smartphone due to simply having a MUCH larger sensor, and you will also get the versatility of interchangeable lenses or, for fixed lens cameras, optical zoom.

I don't know anything about photography. Just want to point and shoot, the same way I use my Samsung Galaxy phone currently

I would suggest setting whatever camera you get into "aperture priority" mode, as then you can adjust depth of field (how much of the background becomes blurred, particularly useful for longer focal lengths), but you don't need to worry as much about shutter speed and ISO. It's what I use, and whenever it's a bit overexposed or underexposed, you can always use the exposure adjustment.

I have a OM TG7, I went from taking a Canon DSLR and a bunch of lenses to just carrying the TG7 and it works great for most of what I need. It is fully auto if That's what you want (point n shoot) or you can tweek just about every thing the DSLRs do. On the plus side it's rugged and waterproof (it will take underwater pics). It will also film UHD video. I got it for about $400 but you also need to get a have to get a fast SD card and a 128GB is almost an extra $100 now. 128GB is over kill for just pics but if you film videos then you will need it.

The only issue I've had is it does not come with an external charger, it has a USB C port on the camera for charging and xfer. The issue is that the battery manager in the camera will prevent charging if the battery goes below 2.5v (normal behavior for Li-Ion battery management), However the camera will allow the battery to discharge to 2.3v so you can end up not being able to charge it if the battery gets to low. Knowing this I just charge when the last bar is left so I don't run it out of power and avoid the issue.

Oldish used point-and-shoot cameras are very cheap on eBay and similar, and fill a niche that basically no longer exists in the new market because the current point-and-shoots are pretty much all prosumer grade models now that everyone else and their dog uses their phone as a camera instead.

So I'll recommend a used example of whatever the newest Canon PowerShot SX1xx line you can get your hands on. I have my old SX130 IS but the 150 and the 160 are also excellent choices. SX160s are selling for about $120 USD on eBay right now.

These have optical image stabilization, a much larger sensor and thus better low light performance than any cell phone camera, very decent optics for a compact point-and-shoot, and here's a very important factor: Everything in this series runs off of regular AA batteries. That means no scrounging around for proprietary lithium packs, nor hoping new-old-stock you find on eBay actually works, nor the myriad of charging and connectivity issues you'll experience using knockoff battery packs. Provided you manage not to break the thing, you should be able to keep any PowerShot SX working for the rest of eternity, one way or the other.

These also have very long zoom ranges. The SX160IS is a 28mm to 448mm equivalent, or "16x" zoom in consumer parlance. Thus it can go from reasonably wide angle to very telephoto, all in one go.

There are a lot of even smaller models you can find like the Canon Digital Elph series, Panasonic Lumix, Nikon Coolpix S series, etc. but all of these without exception take titchy little proprietary lithium battery packs that are going to be a crapshoot. Fun to play with as a curio and very slick, but I would not be in a hurry to make any of those my primary camera these days.

I wear highly unfashionable hiking pants 365 days out of the year and I can fit my SX130 IS into any of my pockets comfortably. It's got a smaller footprint than a modern smartphone, but is about four times the thickness.

The advantage of a camera vs a phone camera is its light sensor. On camera, light sensor are bigger than phone which allow you capturing night detail.

And you can add a tripod to stabilize your image to avoid blurry picture. There is also camera stabiliser for moving movie.

You can also change its lense to capture better dark area. For example a lense where you can't zoom but have an opening of 1.2

I recommend you learning the basic for taking a photo. Sorry i don't know the correct english word for each of them :

• iso
• speed
• white balance
• apperture

Sadly i don't know well camera to recommend you one that fit your budget. I own a 3/4 camera, that has a sensor just below reflex anl are compact. So i'm very happy, it is lesq bulky. My brand is Lumix, i like their UI because i can quickly select the focal point on its tactile screen, quickly increase or decrease speed.

I recommend you testing their UI. I owned a Canon and i was disappointed. I had to select the focal point with button or manage it with lenses rings and that's not very fast, mor efficient.

I hope it helped you to understand better camera and make your choice. Imo, you should test their ui and see how easily you can configure your camera. :)

Look for a used Sony RX100

For simple point-and-shoot, IMO it’s hard to beat a Canon PowerShot. For SLR, you will need a much higher budget.

My iPhone 16 Pro Max outshoots my last PowerShot by a wide margin, and I doubt the S25 is too far behind. (Apple uses AI to oversharpen. Samsung uses AI to oversoften. The PowerShot does not use AI to change the image.

Used cellphone?