In my Quest for the Ultimate Compact Camera, last winter I bought a Sigma DP1. I have had two goals in this quest: to find a good complimentary camera for my big and heavy 4×5 large format system, and to have a stand-alone camera to take on longer backpacking trips when I leave the 4×5 behind. While I loved some aspects of the DP1, namely it’s wonderful image quality and it’s tiny size and weight, the camera didn’t really fulfill either of my goals very well.

With no other viable alternative on the market to fulfill my Quest, my main goal shifted to obtaining a lightweight do-it-all camera setup for my longer backpacking trips when I leave the 4×5 setup at home. The solution was the Olympus E-420, currently the lightest and smallest digital SLR on the market. I didn’t buy the regular kit lenses for this camera; instead I opted for the more expensive but very high quality 12-60mm Olympus lens. I consider this lens to be integral to this camera setup, and as you read my review you must remember that I am reviewing this lens as much as the camera itself.

Read the details of my experience and comparison of both cameras below.

Goodbye Sigma DP1

Here are my perceived drawbacks of the Sigma DP1:

1) Fixed-length wideangle lens that wasn’t quite wide enough for me. The fixed length 28mm-equivalent lens turned out to be simply too limiting for me; many times I wished I had a wider or longer lens to use. (The exception to this was with skiing and snowboarding shots, when I loved this length – more on this below). When I am out shooting photos in the mountains, there is nothing more frustrating than not having a wide enough lens to shoot basic mountain scenes.

2) No macro capabilities. With it’s lengthy minimum focus distance, there’s no chance for close-up shots at all. Some users seem to have had decent results using various macro filter attachments; I tried using a B+W 10+ macro lens, but wasn’t much impressed with the results. An equally important consequence of the lack of close focusing is the fact that even with wideangle compositions, you can’t place foreground elements very close to the camera.

3) Generally slow and compact-camera-style operations. My expectation with this camera would be that it would have all the quick controls and functionality as a dSLR, but in a tiny package. Turns out it certainly delivered dSLR image quality, but the controls felt more like the subpar controls of any other compact. A bit disappointing.

4) The 3:2 image aspect ratio. Although this is the common image ratio with most dSLRs, I absolutely despise it. To my eye it feels like a half-assed panorama for horizontal shots, or much too narrow and lanky for vertical shots. I much prefer the squarer formats of 4:3 or 5:4. Theoretically I could simply crop all my 3:2 photos to those squarer ratios, but in practice I have a strong impulse to fill the entire frame with my composition, so usually cropping isn’t really an option. Plus, cropping is inherently a waste of precious pixels.

With the DP1′s limited lens capabilities as mentioned above, the camera was not a great supplement to my 4×5 set. Nor would it qualify as an only camera on my backpacking trips. The one niche that the DP1 filled excellently for me was to use it for skiing/snowboarding shots in the backcountry. The light weight and compact size, along with the fixed wideangle and the 3 frame burst feature were perfect for this type of adventure/action shooting. When I’m snowboarding, I am focussed more on my own riding than the photography, and being limited to the fixed wideangle length was actually very helpful because I instinctively knew where I had to stop to get the kind of shots I wanted – I knew where I’d have to be in relation to the skier and the background terrain. I feel like this camera really improved my skiing/snowboarding photos this last season.

Despite my love of this camera for skiing/snowboarding shots, and because of its high price, I decided to sell it on eBay. I will surely miss it next winter, and am not sure what I will do to replace it.

Hello Olympus E-420, with 12-60mm lens

This camera combination certainly doesn’t qualify as a compact camera, but along with a small Gitzo GT0530 carbon fiber tripod, the entire package weighs a mere 4-5 pounds – a significant weight savings compared to the 20-25 pounds of my 4×5 large format setup.

Here are the advantages of the Olympus E-420 with 12-60mm lens, as compared to the Sigma DP1:

1) The flexibility of a 24-120mm equivalent zoom range. The difference between a 24mm vs 28mm wideangle is very significant, often meaning the difference between being able to fit a mountain into the frame or not. It is also very liberating to have a zoom range going out to 120mm-equivalent. This zoom range in fact offers what I consider to be the perfect range for about 95% of my landscape photography needs.

2) Awesome macro capabilities. The 12-60mm lens offers great close-up focussing capabilities, opening up a whole world of shooting possibilities.

3) 4:3 image aspect ratio. Olympus, along with Panasonic, are the only cameras to offer 4:3 aspect ratio sensors in SLRs. I love it.

4) SLR speed and control. At this point I’m comparing apples to oranges, but there’s a world of difference with the level of control of a dSLR over all aspects of shooting.

Obviously the E-420 is not a compact like the DP1, and thus has a severe weight and size disadvantage. For snowboarding this is a big problem and I’m not sure if I will want to carry it with me – I think it’s bulky enough to interfere with aggressive riding.

However, the extra size and weight is not much of a problem for me when backpacking, as I can still carry it easily in a chest pouch. In fact, this camera/lens combo has been a real joy to shoot on my recent backpacking trips, allowing me to go lighter, farther, and faster than I ever could with my 4×5 setup, with more ease and flexibility while shooting. While other dSLRs I’ve owned in the past have evoked an intangible revulsion in me, I liked this one right off the bat and have really enjoyed shooting with it.

Conclusion and Ideas for the Future

It is quite unfair to even compare these two, as they are two utterly different cameras. But the similarity, and reason for the comparison, is the basic goal of having a high-quality, lightweight camera setup, and these two cameras are the leading contenders for this – one coming from the compact camera camp, and one coming from the dSLR camp. As a stand-alone, do-it-all camera, the Olympus E-420/12-60mm absolutely blows the Sigma DP1 out of the water, despite its larger size.

I wish I was wealthy enough to keep both cameras and just use the DP1 while snowboarding, but in the end I felt that the DP1 had too high of a price tag to justify this niche usage for me. Perhaps I’ll buy another one someday if/when the price drops substantially.

In an ideal photography world, I would lust after an Olympus E-420 that has a Foveon sensor in it. That is to say, a same-size, pixel-equivalent sensor that is a Foveon instead of a Bayer sensor, which would produce insanely high resolution images.

One exciting recent development is Olympus’s announcement of their upcoming “Micro Four Thirds” lens mount, which theoretically will enable them to produce even more compact SLRs and lenses. I am hoping that their target market with these will be the serious/professional photographer who wants top-notch quality and performance in an ever smaller and lighter package. Perhaps then my Quest for the Ultimate Compact Camera would be complete!