An EDC that will delight both Casual Shutterbugs AND Photographers
By BRADLEY
Rated 5 out of 5
Date: 2026-08-20
i wanted a camera that i would literally take everywhere, every day. a self-contained unit with a collapsable, built-in lens, a reasonable focal length, reasonable light gathering capability and a sensor beyond the 1" size offered up by the majority of P&S. add top-tier, 2025+ AF tech w/people detect and fast startup times, and my choices were suddenly very limited, with basically the Lumix L10 and the V1. because i was going for ultimate portability and the thinnest profile possible, jacket pocketable and lightweight, i had to go with the V1 even though i really like the L10's overall vibe.
but this isn't about vibes. in fact, i wanted extra-touristy as well. something no one will notice in their face, or care about from afar, something i don't even need to cover unless it rains. yes, i lose all weather sealing, but that's OK. this isn't a GADA camera, just a stop-gap between my phone and the Nikon Z5 II, Z50 II and OM-3 i also own, and a fine one at that.
this is a video-first content creator camera with a penchant for producing killer stills. i don't do video and don't care about that side of the equation. i won't bore you with specs. go watch a review. PASM plus C1-C3. touchscreen is fast and responsive. you can dial in all kinds of settings via the "Q" button on the screen. i used it for one day and ~100 frames and already have muscle memory for the controls. there's a few programmable button options and PASM can be spun by your thumb to go to your custom setups without looking.
there are several JPEG profiles on tap with lots of adjustability, sharpening, fine contrast/micro contrast, hue, color tone, B&W filters, etc. no grain options. you can create and save three custom profiles, and if you use a custom profile in conjunction with a C1-C3 preset on the dial, you can save a WB shift as well.
one nit i did find is that you MUST use a finger on the touchscreen to pick a focus point. there is no moving the focus point via the D-Pad and no joystick. not a deal breaker, but a hard habit to re-adjust to.
SENSOR:
let's talk about the sensor, 18.4 x 12.3mm vs MFT 17.3 x 13mm. roughly 1/4 the size of an FF sensor. not quite 4:3, more like 3:2, but image quality is in line with the results people get from MFT rigs. 22.3MP, 5760 x 3840 pixel frames. some of you may want to dive into MFT semantics ("it's a mount, not a sensor size!") i don't care, whatever. it's an MFT-sized sensor. i am super-happy with the output. base-level LR AI Denoise cleans up the images to perfection.
LENS:
the lens is an 8-25/2.8-4.5 and because if follows MFT equivalency, it's a 16-50mm lens, an awesome zoom range for travel and street. 5-stop OIS does it's job. i did 1s exposures in a dark museum no problem. overall, captures seem very sharp, but corners are soft wide open.
CONCLUSION:
this isn't a replacement for my MFT, or APS-C, or FF kits. it IS a excellent replacement for my phone and better than 1" P&S cameras, IMO. it's small, light enough to carry in your hand all day, and is pretty good at anything but the most demanding circumstances. it's NOT weather-resistant in the least, so keep it in a bag if traveling on bad days.