Middleweight Camera Championship

The E-420 would be a natural choice if you already own a larger Olympus camera, such as the E-3 or the new E-30. It’s essentially a mini-me of these cameras that has similar controls, shoots the same file format, and takes the same lenses. The Panasonic, in contrast, introduces a new lens format for which there are currently only two models, the 14mm to 45mm (equivalent to 28mm to 90mm on a film camera) that I tested it with and 45mm-200mm telephoto. (Lenses from larger Panasonic SLRs can be attached via an adapter, but that kills the point of making the camera assembly smaller.) The Olympus E-420 comes with a similar 14mm to 45mm lens but also works with any of the company’s other 21 digital-SLR lenses.

Conclusion

The best overall camera for image quality was (drumroll please), unsurprisingly, the Olympus E-420. The others varied wildly. Canon's G10 aced bright outdoor settings and also produced stunning nighttime photographs using its built-in flash. But with low light and no flash, it was virtually useless. The Panasonic G1’s color and exposure were skewed under daylight, but low-light images with high ISO (sensitivity) settings looked surprisingly good—both with and without flash. Please launch the gallery here to see a series of comparison shots from all three cameras.

Nevertheless, image quality is hardly the only factor you're going to be dealing with. For a lighter-weight SLR, the Olympus E-420 is a great choice. But while it’s a lot smaller than most SLRs, it still won’t squeeze into any pocket. For that level of portability, the Canon G10 is the way to go. Panasonic’s micro four-thirds format (for which, by the way, Olympus also plans to make cameras) would have promised the ideal camera: The soul of an SLR in the body of a point-and-shoot. But the G1 is too bulky, too SLR-like for that. In other words, there's no clear winner; the best I can advise is that you figure out what features you're willing to tradeoff for and work it out from there. That, or hold out for Olympus's take on the micro four-thirds format.

Launch the gallery of test shots here.