43 Rumors

Last year I bought an Olympus E-P1 and I have to say that I’m impressed from the picture and construction quality. About a month ago I purchased a Panasonic GF1 and I have to confess that I’m excited from the AF speed. Oly has much better colors and Pana is a little bit sharper, hard to decide which one I like more. Then, my wife decided to keep Oly for herself, so now, I must say that now I like Pana more (even if I miss Oly……)

The original PENs are beautiful cameras with great in camera JPEG compression, but are hobbled by the interface, AF speed and low res screen. The NEX cams are small and have an APSC sensor, but to stay small, the lenses need to be slower, much slower. The Samsungs are close, but underperform compared to the Sonys and have the same lens size issue making it a ‘not quite compact’ package. The G and GH cams are quality, but they’re not much smaller than a small dSLR which has a larger sensor and better/more affordable lens options.

Depending on your needs from a MILC camera, you could make a justifiable argument for any of them. To me, I want a truly compact camera, with fast lenses, good AF speed and customizability. That is the GF1 (and to an extent the GF2). There are things that could be improved upon, and surely will, but out of the current offerings, if you are looking for a small, pocket camera with entry level dSLR image quality, it is the GF1.

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