Little Big Gun
If Leica’s method is to strip a camera down to its beautifully crafted essentials (and then charge a lot for what’s left), Olympus is doing just the opposite—packing features and even a hefty interchangeable lens onto a true point-and-shoot body and then charging fairly little. That combination of interchangeable lens—it comes with a 14–42mm f/3.5–5.6—and wafer-thin body made the 12.3MP E-PL1 unique among the cameras in our test. The good glass in its stock lens makes for clear 720p videos, and, unlike the other compact, video-shooting cameras here, the E-PL1 has a dedicated record button that works just like the shutter button. Absent, though, are easy manual-mode override dials for shutter speed or exposure compensation. You can control those things in the digital menus, but really, this camera is all about autopilot. 15.2 oz;
Features: 3
Value: 4.1