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I am a camera JONG but a friend of mine is asking me (I suppose because I live in Japan) about the comparitve merits of this "mini-slr" cameras like the canon/olympus pen-ep1 or the Panasonic Lumix G1. Are they hard to use? Do they take good photos? Any feedback would be helpful. They are getting super popular in Asia.
here are some thoughts on the panny GF1
[ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171741"]Eldo's GF1 review... - Teton Gravity Research Forums[/ame]
regarding ease of use, you can use them as a 100% point and shoot ("intelligent auto" mode on the GF1) and get reasonable results. or fiddle to your heart's content if that is what you are into
picture quality is a lot better than compact (subject to Eldo's comments in the thread I linked to)
Ease of use should be comparable to an SLR, most cameras on the market today offer an "auto" setting and several semi auto and scene based modes. Personally I find a camera with no manual setting the hardest to use.
Image quality should be on par with (non micro)4/3 format SLRs. It's the same sensor, but no mirror and smaller lenses (there is an adapter to use regular 4/3 lenses). I shoot standard 4/3 and the image quality is slightly lagging behind image quality from APS-C sized sensors, particularly at high ISO. High ISO performance is a serious let down, really my only gripe with the system, but IMHO otherwise the image quality is more than good enough. The lenses however tend to be excellent, even the cheap kit ones, all are incredibly sharp.
The image quality on micro 4/3 cameras will be much better than that of a point and shoot, factor that in with interchangeable lenses, it really seems like a system worth considering.
Good photos are 95% controlled by the equipment located behind the viewfinder.