Panasonic's also found a way to add in a discrete pop-up flash which, while seriously underpowered for dark scenes, is a great little fill flash for portraits. I also thought the GF1's 3-inch, high-resolution (460,000 dots) LCD screen was a massive improvement over those on the Olympus and Sigma models.

And while the GF1 doesn't have full resolution HD—just 720p like the EP-1 and EP-2—the camera's video mode was a pleasure to use. The ability to adjust depth of field while shooting movies is a helpful feature that will give your clips a professional look.

Though I thought the stainless steel Olympus EP-1 was one of the most attractive compact cameras I've ever tested, the GF1 is smaller and lighter and fits more easily into a coat pocket. Also, the camera's simple, black design is subtler than the EP-1 so you're less conspicuous when shooting. (Plus, the faster autofocus is better for capturing candids.)

Now the not-so-good news. While image quality was excellent in good light, with tons of resolution and detail when shooting in RAW, the GF1 struggled at ISO 800 and above. In JPEG mode, aggressive anti-noise processing tended to wipe out all that detail and resolution. I used the GF1 at a hockey game and the players' jerseys were a blotchy mess at ISO 1600 and 3200.

So while I can see the advantage of Micro Four Thirds in that it gives manufacturers the ability to make smaller and lighter interchangeable lens cameras, until they solve the inherent noise problems on these smaller-than-APS-C chips, what's the point? I'd rather shoot with a small DSLR because when you add on the 14-45mm lens and a clip-on optical viewfinder to the GF1, the size difference is nominal. (Ok, that did sound like a rant.)