EVIL Is Good

 Image: Truth Leem/Reuters

You love photography. But you dislike the tiny sensors of a compact digital. But you also can’t handle the bulk of a DSLR. Don’t despair, there’s hope for you yet. A new genre — mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras — uses sensors almost as big as entry-level DSLRs, giving you much higher quality images than the compacts. And, as the name suggests, you can change lenses depending on your requirements, something only DSLRs offered until now. With just the basic lens (sometimes referred to as a pancake lens), they are small enough to fit into your shirt pocket. They give you much more control over your photographs.

The major omission? An optical viewfinder, impossible to have at this size. But some of these cameras come with an electronic viewfinder that you can mount on their hotshoe; the look reminds old hands of the rangefinder cameras of yesteryears. And, we confess, we like the term some people use for them: EVIL cameras (“electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens cameras”).

Even at their current, early stage of evolution, their picture quality and the photo-taking process are quite superior to most digital compacts. For experts and serious hobbyists, I’d say wait for a year; I think the category will get even better, and rapidly at that. Right now, they are streets ahead of the average ‘holiday’ camera, and a good buy for just about everyone else.

Some models to look out for: Panasonic DMC-G series (the pioneers), Olympus Pen series, Sony NEX series, and the recently launched Samsung NX100