I cancelled my preorder for the new Olympus XZ-1 compact this morning after some thought about whether I would really use it much. This is another image from my California trip, again proving to me that I could put the D7000 and Tamron zoom in my carry-on and capture images during a few hours of down time.
There are photographers that I respect who have been using the latest generation of compact cameras and the micro four thirds mirrorless cameras from Panasonic and Olympus as a lighter kit.
I’ve realized that I’m just not a travel, editorial or event photographer. I use my photography as a creative outlet. I return home from a vacation with photographs of stumps and storm drains. The big view location photographs tend to be uninteresting to me when I review the images.
Certainly I always wish I had more visual diary type images, but if I go out with a compact, I end up capturing what I find visually interesting, not what I want to remember.
I use my iPhone camera regularly because its connected and has geotagging built in. I can upload to Facebook for friends and family or send an email or MMS with the image. Downloading RAW files into Aperture just doesn’t have the same spontaneity.
I leave the Sigma DP1 out of the discussion because its a full size sensor compact and provides images of great quality. Its a slow, quirky camera with a slow fixed lens (f/4) and a sensor that doesn’t do well above ISO 400. But its been my travel creative camera and provided some of my best images. I also keep the Leica M6 for shooting film from time to time. But the D7000 is my camera of choice. I don’t see that adding an expensive compact like the Olympus is really going to help me capture more images.
