The new 4/3 cameras seem like the best compromise for high quality…
Olympus E-P1. 13Mp and 12oz. The major drawback is that it doesn’t have a viewfinder and it has a slow focus in low light and the zoom is slow too. The good news is that image quality and noise levels and speed are equal to a dSLR. So this is a 1st generation camera that shows great promise because of the picture quality. Just doing JPG, between ISO 200-1600, it is terrific.
Panasonic DMC-GF1. This is a 12MP camera with AVCHD lite for movies. It also doesn’t have a viewfinder and lists for a cool $900 with $200 for the viewfinder. So way more than a dSLR 🙂 It is really the DMC-G1 in a much smaller body. It is more expensive, but if has built-in flash, a electronic viewfinder and fast focus plus it does do movies so you don’t need a camcorder for casual situations.
