For five years now I've been writing about wanting a compact camera with a large sensor. If we take just a tiny bit of liberty on what "compact" means, it seems that my choices are multiplying like rabbits.
I tried the Sigma DP-1/2. The camera holds back the sensor. I've been using an Olympus E-P1. The autofocus is its liability. Olympus round two is coming. I've got a Panasonic GF1. That solves the autofocus issue but, unfortunately, is a slight step backwards for usability for Panasonic. Still, close. Leica has announced the X1. At fifty cents a horizontal pixel it's just a wee bit pricey. Samsung has announced and announced and announced the NX. We'll see when it gets here. Ricoh has talked about their upcoming entrant. Fujifilm appears about to take EXR into the fray. Sony says they'll have one, but it sounds like a rush effort to not let all the above get too far ahead of them in the next hot camera market. Nikon has been quiet publicly, but the rumors have them with, surprisingly, the smallest of the "large sensor" compacts. Canon, well, they're "investigating" the idea. Nine known large sensor compacts, one probable. And the leading camera company missing in action ("can we interest you in a G11 instead?"). Yep, the tweener market between compact cameras and DSLRs is about to get just as cluttered as the other camera markets as the herd moves to new grazing grounds in hopes of finding higher margin grass.
Funny thing is, it doesn't seem like anyone is really getting these designs quite right, which means they probably don't understand the real demand. Okay, Leica is relatively close to what I wrote I wanted in 2005, but US$1999 is out of the mainstream. But one dead-on design would pretty much knock out the rest very quickly. Or at least turn them back to the drawing board.
Let's hope someone dials it in soon. Simple. Small. Photographer-centric. Excellent image quality. Really only four targets to hit, so why is it so difficult?
They all can't win in this game, it's already too crowded. But so far no one is really close to winning. The herd is just in another pasture doing the same thing as before. Oh, and each cow seems to have a desperate need to announce that they're changing pastures before they get to the fence. All that does is attract more cows, I think.