Update: Compact camera selection

Having spent some time playing around with the Nikon P5100 in shop, it is very hard to find a good enough compact camera when you are used to using DSLR. The autofocus on compact cameras is just lacking the speed. But, now I have my mind set on another compact camera – Panasonic DMC-LX3. This is pretty much the best compact camera there is.

Why Panasonic DMC-LX3?

First it has a 3-inch 3:2 LCD with 460,000-dot high resolution. It offers a real 16:9, 4:3 and 3:2 ratio aspect (maintaining angel of view and not by cropping). There aren’t many truly pocket-sized digicams that offer raw mode. There aren’t very many that currently offer decent HD video capability as well. There are even less that feature a truly wide angle lens (24mm), and pocket-sized camera’s with fast f/2 optics are even fewer and farther between.

Did I mention it has an amazing wide angle lens @ 24mm-60mm f/2-f/2.8? Compare to a typical f/2.8-f/5.6 lens, this provides 1 stop better at wide angle and 2 stops better when zoomed. So effectively, allows a lower ISO for the same shot.

Watch this space to see which camera I end up with.