Looking for a small, light, quality camera?

The success of the Olympus and Panasonic mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras shows that there is a demand for this type of camera – a small, light quality camera. Something smaller and lighter than a DSLR, but with better image quality and flexibility than a compact camera.

I’ve argued before that there is a proportion of this market segment for whom size and weight is a priority. It seems that Sony gets this: its recently announced NEX cameras demonstrate what can be done when size and weight are important design criteria.

But it’s not the weight of the size and weight of the camera that is important. It is the weight of the camera/lens/battery/memory card package that counts. Micro Four Thirds cameras have an inherent advantage here, since, for a given image quality, lenses for a m4/3 sensor can be made smaller and lighter than lenses for a APS-C image sensor.

This blog post collects together camera and lens sizes and weights. If camera size and weight is an important consideration for you, then these tables may be of some help. Note I make no attempt to compare the quality or ergonomics of any of these cameras, there are plenty of camera review sites that do that.

Mirrorless cameras

The following table gives the sizes of various mirrorless cameras, and their weights with various lenses. The pancake lens is the manufacturer’s wide angle prime lens. The zoom lens is the manufacture’s nearest equivalent to a 28-84mm (full frame) lens. The superzoom is the manufacture’s nearest equivalent to a 28-300mm (full frame) lens. All weights include batteries.

Model	Weight	Weight (pancake)	Weight (zoom)	Weight (superzoom)	Dimensions	LCD Dots
Olympus E-P1	355g	426g	505g	645g	121 x 70 x 36 mm	230,000
Olympus E-P2	355g	426g	505g	645g	121 x 70 x 36 mm	230,000
Olympus E-PL1	334g	406g	484g	624g	115 x 72 x 42 mm	230,000
Panasonic GF1	315g	415g	480g	775g	119 x 71 x 36 mm	460,000
Sony NEX-3	297g	371g	511g	821g	117 × 62 × 33 mm	920,000
Sony NEX-5	287g	361g	501g	811g	111 × 59 × 38 mm	920,000
Samsung NX10	414g	499g	612g	831g	123 × 87× 40 mm	614,000

The overall lightest camera/lens combination is the Sony NEX-5 with 16mm lens. This is thanks to the low weight of the Sony camera. With zoom lenses, the inherent size/weight advantage of micro4/3 comes into play: the Panasonic GF1 provides the lightest camera with standard zoom combination and the Olympus E-PL1 provides the lightest camera with superzoom combination. (Of course slightly lighter combinations could be obtained by mixing Panasonic and Olympus lenses and bodies.)

Note that Samsung does not seem to have got it. The NX10 is barely smaller or lighter than some of the smallest DSLRs (see next section).

DSLRs

For comparison, here are the sizes and weight of some of the smaller and lighter DSLRs:

Model	Weight	Weight (pancake)	Weight (zoom)	Weight (superzoom)	Dimensions	LCD Dots
Canon EOS 1000D	502g	N/A	702g	1097g	126 x 98 x 65 mm	230,000
Nikon D60	522g	N/A	787g	1082g	126 x 94 x 64 mm	230,000
Olympus E-450	426g	521g	616g	N/A	130 x 91 x 53 mm	230,000

Compact cameras

And for further comparison, here are the weights and dimensions of some of the higher end compact cameras:

Model	Weight	Dimensions	LCD Dots
Canon PowerShot G11 [28-140mm]	375g	112 x 76 x 48 mm	461,000
Canon PowerShot S90 [28-105mm]	195g	100 x 58 x 31 mm	461,000
Leica X1 [35mm]	306g	124 x 60 x 32 mm	230,000
Nikon Coolpix P6000 [28-112mm]	280g	107 x 66 x 42 mm	230,000
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 [24-60mm]	265g	109 x 60 x 27 mm	460,000

Lenses

For reference, here are the weights and sizes of the lenses available for mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras:

Model	Weight	Dimensions	Filter diameter
Olympus 9-18mm[18-36mm] f4.0-4.6	155g	57 x50 mm	52mm
Olympus 14-42mm[28-84mm] f3.5-5.6	150g	62 x 44 mm	40.5mm
Olympus 14-150mm[28-300mm] f4.0-5.6	290g	64 x 83 mm	58mm
Olympus 17mm[34mm] f2.8	71g	57 x 22 mm	37 mm
Panasonic 7-14mm[14-28mm] f4.0	300g	70 x 83 mm	-
Panasonic 14-42mm[28-84mm] f3.5-5.6	165g	61 x 64 mm	52 mm
Panasonic 14-45mm[28-84mm] f3.5-5.6	195g	60 x 60 mm	52 mm
Panasonic 14-140mm[28-280mm] f4.0-5.8	460g	70 x 84 mm	62 mm
Panasonic 20mm[40mm] f1.7	100g	63 x 26 mm	46 mm
Panasonic 45mm[90mm] f2.8	225g	63 x 63 mm	46 mm
Panasonic 45-200mm[90-400mm] f4.0-5.6	380g	70 x 100 mm	52 mm
Samsung 18-55mm[28-85mm] F3.5-5.6	198g	63 x 65 mm	58 mm
Samsung 30mm[46mm] f2	85g	62 x 22 mm	43 mm
Samsung 50-200mm[77-308mm] F4-5.6	417g	70 x 101 mm	52 mm
Sony 16mm[24mm] f2.8	74g	62 x 23 mm	49 mm
Sony 18-55[27-83mm] f2.5-5.6	214g	62 x 60 mm	49 mm
Sony 18-200[27-300mm] f3.5-6.3	524g	76 x 99 mm	67 mm

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