Best Advanced Compact

The advanced or "pro-sumer" compact market really heated up this year, and it seems every manufacturer wants a piece of the action. Larger sensors, bright lenses, RAW capture, and a wide array of external manual controls define these cameras and set them apart from their cheaper brethren. Enthusiasts love them, and pros are known to tuck one away in their dSLR bags. While the competition is stiff, the Olympus XZ-1 stands apart due to its exceptionally bright f1/8-2.5 lens. We should be clear here, the XZ-1 isn’t far and away the best camera out of the bunch: Almost all the prosumer compacts (Nikon P7000 excluded) are about equal in image quality, but Olympus has managed to include just about every feature a photographer could want, all in a relatively compact package. The lens on the Samsung TL500 is actually just as fast as that on the XZ-1, but it can’t keep up with the XZ-1’s versatile 28-112mm range, doesn’t shoot HD video, and is a much heavier camera. The XZ-1 not as small as the Canon S95, but makes up for that by being 4x brighter at the long end of the zoom. The Canon G12 offers extra zoom range and an optical viewfinder, but the lens is slower and the body much bulkier. The LX5 is the closest competitor here, it’s only 1/3 of a stop slower throughout the lens range, boasts a bit wider range, and costs less, but the XZ-1’s control ring and high-resolution OLED screen make up for the price difference. Any of these cameras will do the trick, but the XZ-1 is arguably the most well-rounded, and should work well for just about any photographer in just about any situation.