Another possibility for a reasonably small (but not necessarily “pocket”, unless one is wearing cargo pants 
) kit is the Sony APS-C line. The A6300 and its contemporaries can be had for less than 500 EUR these days in good condition, are pretty small, yet come with a grip, and have excellent AF.
Lenses are a tad bigger and more expensive than micro 4/3, but still reasonable for EDC/travel, especially the third party ones (eg Tamron zooms).
Funny that you mentioned this line because I’ve been somewhat obsessed recently over compact rangefinder-style cameras and wishing for new models of the Lumix GX/GM or Olympus PEN, and forgetting that Sony actually has this line in APS-C. And my wife has one, so it’s daft that I hadn’t really remembered about it.
Even though Sony APS-C is still much better served than what Canon and Nikon are doing, I still feel it’s a poor sibling to the FF options that Sony offers. You’re still quite reliant on 3rd party lenses, and I wish they differentiated a bit more from FF, like adding computational features. But I do like the fact that they have EVFs and substantial grips.
Indeed, it’s actually just a few millimetres larger than the E-PL9. Too late for me now (and probably a bit above my budget when you add a lens) but worth a look for others in my situation.
Chris Niccolls of PetaPixel just did a video rant on this subject. Specifically the GM5 and calling on Panasonic to produce something similar.
I hope they listen to him! I think a revival of these models would do really well. I’m particularly disappointed in Panasonic because their current M4/3 bodies are basically the same size as full-frame bodies. They really need to lean into the strengths of M4/3 more because right now users are questioning what the point is when they can just go full-frame.
I think Emily from Micro Four Nerds is also a big proponent of the Lumix rangefinder cameras and recently put the GX9 as her no.1 EDC camera. I’ve never used one but it’s basically the conclusion I had come to independently, in that it ticks the boxes I’m looking for.
DPRreview has a comprehensive set of in-depth camera reviews, especially for Panasonic, FWIW.
FWIW, I had the opportunity to try out a Sony A6300 for a weekend before I opted for micro 4/3. I never learned to like the controls, but I could have lived with them; the key factor for me was that the lenses on micro 4/3 are better and smaller for a given budget (that said, there are some excellent pancake primes for Sony APS-C too).
This is actually also one of my issues with the RX100. Not sure if it’s the camera’s fault or if it is just too different from my “main” camera. The menu is a huge mess, though, difficult to find anything and some entries have very cryptic abbreviations. So based on my experience, I would probably have stayed away from Sony anyway.
You still have to somehow know first, that a specific line of cameras exists, before you can look for reviews. That’s what I meant with my comment above.
Yes, DPR does not meet that criterion:
I would guess that a “specific line of cameras” is best found by AI … pick one … then go to DPR.
Examples of AI are frowned upon here but I just now asked …
looking for a list of micro four-thirds compact cameras with non-interchangeable zoom lenses - any manufacturer
… with tolerable results.
dude, come on. what is the problem? how many times do i have to ask you to stop? you know better, clearly. i know you’re just going to delete your post but we’re so far past that. please give an actual answer, what is the problem here? were we not clear enough? what wasn’t clear? if it is clear, why do you continue to do so? do you think that acknowledging that you know better before doing the thing we’ve asked you not to do somehow makes it ok? (the answer to that is “no, it doesn’t”)… it’s been at least a dozen times. what gives?
I will not delete my post which I believe to be helpful to my respondee.
I will try never to say “AI” again - only in order to comply with your apparently anti-AI obsession in spite of it’s usefulness for some tasks.
Please try harder.
Hi @cedric, I know you probably think it’s an unnecessarily harsh rule to have on this forum, but speaking as a lowly user (not a mod) I’m in favour of the rule. I want to keep this place AI free and for it to be a human-only forum. I value the opinions and knowledge of the users, knowing that those opinions come from a place of actual human experience. Also, AI often gets things wrong, but it gives answers confidently, so erroneous and incomplete information is not always obvious. What you are finding “useful” might actually be deceptive.
There are also countless other reasons why I don’t want AI here (and in lots of other places), but this thread is probably not the place for that larger discussion.
Yes, that is the common view. Which is why I personally ask simple questions such as the above and then I verify the response as best as I can. It’s easy enough to look at a list of cameras and know if they are correct or not.
I’m done with this sub-discussion.
Like, the empty set? As Micro Four Thirds is an mount format, designed for mirrorless, interchangeable lens cameras.
Maybe it is not clear to you, but if someone wants an AI answer, they can ask it themselves to the AI (or just plain Google search). There is no need for someone to go ask the question for a someone else and then post the unverified answer in a forum.
While I agree with the general sentiment on AI answers here (for what it’s worth, Google’s AI answer at the top of the results just told me the E-PL9 does not have an anti-aliasing filter while all sources I checked say it has one), I think Cedric’s suggestion to ask an LLM isn’t so bad in this case. Getting some pointers to camera models that might be worth looking into, when one has some specific constraints, is something where I can imagine LLMs to actually be helpful (and wrong suggestions can easily be identified and discarded in this case).
But please let’s end this discussion here and keep the thread on topic.
Very clever.
Micro four-thirds also defines a sensor size and it understood “micro four-thirds compact cameras” perfectly well, for what that is worth.
I did not post the the answer in this forum. In your rush to bash, you may have missed that …
