Olympus XZ-1 10.0 MP Digital Camera - White

Not the smallest or lightest compact camera. but comfortably slips into a pocket. Not the biggest zoom range.
What you do get is picture quality on a par with anything on the market. Excellent quality lens, with F1.8 aperture, and larger size sensor knock spots off the competition. More features than you can shake a stick at, or auto point and shoot. This camera will not disappoint anyone.

Since Panasonic picture quality has dropped off due to cramming too many pixels onto small sensors and ever increasing zoom, ranges, I was looking for something equal in quality to the old Panasonic/Leica combination.
The XZ-1 seems to fit the bill. Superb quality lens, with f1.8 as a bonus and a sensible 10MP sensor produce really sharp detailed images.

I purchased this camera due to its slightly larger- and less pixel crowded- 10mp sensor- which in conjunction with its fast f/1.8-2.5 lens, delivers very good results by compact standards.
Images are sharp across the frame- though not at the expense of the usual artifacts common to compacts- due to false sharpening via processing. The camera also meters very well giving accurate exposures consistently. Colour balance is excellent- very natural.
Indoors I've found the flash to be very effective- again metering well and the flash delivering the correct amount of light for a given subject- particularly good for portraits- and the shallow DOF from the fast lens also adds to the pleasing images.
High iso performance isn't especially good- though with a reasonably short zoom range,the good flash and fast lens, this isn't really a hindrance as high iso's will rarely be necessary.
Overall performance is very good for a compact- with fast start up, swift and accurate focusing and very good shot to shot times (with image review off).
Many might scoff at the zoom range- but it's longer than your typical DSLR kit lens range- and you can attach a tele-converter if you so wish.

If I was to be hyper critical- I'd suggest that the image stabilizer isn't the best I've encountered- no doubt due to being sensor based as opposed to lens based- though it's rarely a problem,again due to the fast lens keeping shutter speeds higher than usual.
The menu system takes a while to get used to- but for a frequent user, he/she will soon get used to it.
As for the video mode- the less said the better- though I didn't buy if for that..!

Not really being up to date with a lot of the clever technical features these modern cameras have I focused on lens quality and after much debate I picked the xz-1 - the speed of this lens is phenomenal, the quality of the pictures is outstanding and having used it for about a month now and convinced I made the right choice... and not just because of the lens but also the nifty art modes that give it a fantastic edge over my much older Nikon DSLR. The relatively small zoom doesn't bother me as much as I thought it might, am not really bothered by the less than brilliant video mode (I have a separate digital video camera for that anyway) and the only niggle is the manual lens cover, which I have replaced with a screw on automatic cover...

I paid around £220 on ebay and reckon I've got a bargin - technology comes and goes but by getting the basics right - the lens, good build quality, sensor size, availability of lots of screen info (as you might in an DSLR) and RAW as well as JPEG capture, you end up with a product that will survive its basic technological redundancy (which these days seems to come around every year or so).

I'm not a gifted photographer and not a technical geek who knows alot about tweeking photos but this camera does make me want to go out and experiment, to think about the scenes I see around me everyday and just enjoy having a camera that will do a fantastic job.

I carry it with me in the car at all times and after a few doubts (basically - working out how to use it properly) love this camera as much as I did my first compact (ironically, another Olympus, the Olympus Trip 35).

Nothing special to say, this is the best camera on the market for the price range. The sensor is the biggest among all the compact cameras and the lense is the brightest. Features are also extremely interesting. All over I believe this is the best choice available if you don't want to buy a reflex (and might be even better than low end ones).