Are zoom cameras/lenses inherently lower quality or is it only

It's all about the focal length. Prime lenses are just better able to get shorter focal length than zoom lenses, hence why primefags hold up "muh superior quality" as though the marginal difference really matters much. Zooms are just more versatile and better

>>3125284
Zoom lenses are more complex and thus more difficult to do well. In the pre-CAD era, good zooms were hard to come by, nowadays they're much better on average.

For compact film cameras like Stylus you posted, zooms also have MUCH smaller apertures (like f/8-f/13 instead of f/3.5-f/4 typical for primes), so they essentially limit you to daylight or flash shooting.

>>3125284
Depends on the lens. But primes are almost always optically better for the same price.

Regardless, some $100 lens usually doesn't fare well against a $2000 one, even if the latter is a zoom lens. Companies tend to +- know how to price their stuff.

>>3125284
All those zoom compacts are cheaper second hand than the prime versions of same camera for a reason

>>3125296
>teles are better than primes
just wow. youd thought gearfags would know their shit. so you fail at photo AND at gearfag? what other surprises do you have under your sleeve, my failed friend?

I shot a 38-140mm Nikon Lite Touch and side by side with appropriate primes you'd be hard pressed to tell which is which, on similar settings (obv you can't get bokeh or shallow dof on it).
It comes down to the limited range of applications and shit-all for lowlight w/o using flash. Def. worth the $5 for the experience alone.

>>3126847
>im poor
yeah, we all already aware of that, lad.

I borrowed a $1.2k Zeiss 24-70mm f4 lens to compare with my $250 vintage Zeiss 50mm f1.4, even at f2 the prime 50mm is noticeably sharper at center compared to the 24-70 at 50/f.4. When I shot a flower in bright sunlight the 24-70 produced some short of "bloom" effect, blurring some details while the prime 50 produced crystal clear image.

So I think even high end zooms are shit I'll never buy one.