The best digital camera

Supermacro on Fuji X10, crop and some editing in GIMP

The best digital camera is the camera you use to take pictures and enjoy it. Many of my favorite pictures were taken with 2MP camera. This old point-and-shoot camera would not much my current DSLR in image quality but I took more pictures with it. In last several months I took 5-6 times more pictures with the Fuji X10 than with my DSLR. The Fuji X10 is a "family camera", so I cannot take it with me every day. Image quality of Fuji X10 is sufficient for my needs. It does make me happy.

Take the image of the Hibiscus stigma posted above. It was edited in GIMP to greater extend that I normally do. It was taken with Fuji X10 at iso 400, F4.0, 1/56 sec, compensation -0.3 EV. I posted 100% crop from the original JPEG below. There are several problems with this image. Red channel was oversaturated and clipped to some extend, and I would like see more details in tiny hairs on the stigma. In order to take similar picture with a DSLR I need to buy macro lens and carry it together with zoom lens, while Fuji X10 fits into a small camera bag.

It also turned out that I am getting more sharp images with the Fuji X10 than with my DSLR. I suspect the mirror slap. It can be resolved with a tripod but it would add a couple kilos to my bag.

I really enjoy depth of field in Fuji X10: the image above was shot on cloudy day at F4.0, and to get the same depth of field on a DSLR I need to close the aperture for several stops.

Would I choose Fuji X10 over my old 2MP point-and-shoot? For sure. Would I damp my DSLR and use only Fuji X10? Probably not because I like the image quality of Olympus DSLRs, and occasionally I like to have a narrow DoF. Do I want to upgrade the Fuji X10 to another compact camera? I may buy another compact camera because I want to have camera with me every day but I am not in a hurry. I will wait for replacement of current high end compacts because I am very intrigued by 1' sensor in Sony RX100. Cameras with 1' censor still have relatively big depth of field but the image quality should be similar to what we see in current advanced compacts or even better due to improvements in the sensor technology. Olympus XZ-2 with 1' sensor and bright lens will be very tempting especially with the screen used in Olympus OM-D E-M5 (one of my complains about the X10 is the fixed screen). Samsung EX2 might be also interesting camera.

While I am not really happy with my DSLR I do not want to buy another big camera. I'd rather buy a mirrorless system camera. Frankly, the only major advantage of mirrrorless system cameras over DSLRs is a smaller size, but I would prefer to have a smaller camera with smaller lenses. The gap between mirrorless and DSLR cameras will narrow in the future to the extend when the difference will be irrelevant for practical use in 95% of situations. Nikon already demonstrated fast and accurate focus in their Nikon 1 cameras. The battery life probably can be improved to some extend.