Top: Panasonic DMC-GF1C-K, a well-regarded rival to the E-P1 that sports a built-in flash

Middle: Olympus Pen E-P2, a more feature-rich version of the E-P1

Bottom: Samsung NX10 uses a sensor that's even larger than those found in other Micro Four Thirds cameras

Under the spotlight

Photography tech

Olympus PEN /
Micro Four Thirds

Want a compact camera that takes SLR-quality pictures? Read on…

Anyone with a passing interest in photography will have noticed the full-on marketing blitz that accompanied the launch of Olympus' stylish PEN E-P1 in 2009. It's an update of the original — and hugely popular — PEN introduced by Olympus in 1959. Apart from its achingly cool looks, the main draw of the PEN is its claim to pack "the power of D-SLR… in a sleek retro body".

It's a Micro Four Thirds (also known as a mirrorless interchangeable lens) camera and inhabits an attractive middle ground in photography. Such devices strive to combine the convenience of a point 'n' shoot with the pro-like image quality of bulky D-SLRs. They record high-definition video, too, removing the need to lug around another device if you fancy being James Cameron for the day.

However, according to an exceptionally thorough write-up by Digital Photography Review, the £570 (approx $878) PEN is flawed: it has no flash or optical viewfinder, is slow to focus and its low-resolution screen is hard to view in bright light. But in spite of these failings, it >>>
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