Ooh.
That E-PL1 for £280 is starting to look attractive. It comes as standard with a 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens (should be OK as a starting point?) and is at least £20 cheaper than any of the more expensive compacts I listed.
I probably wouldn't get the pancake straight away though, I'd save that financial hit for another day...
Ooh.That E-PL1 for £280 is starting to look attractive. It comes as standard with a 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens (should be OK as a starting point?) and is at least £20 cheaper than any of the more expensive compacts I listed.
I probably wouldn't get the pancake straight away though, I'd save that financial hit for another day...
EPL1 is a great little camera. The kit lens will be fine for now if you want to start getting into using other lenses, you can buy good old manual focus/aperture lenses for dirt cheap (like a Canon FD 50mm 1.8 for maybe £20), and get an adapter. You have to focus and set aperture but if you use it in aperture priority mode the camera will meter and work out a shutter speed for you. Using old lenses is a great way to learn about photography in a really 'hands-on' way imo.
And if you're going to shell out on the pancake get the Panasonic 20mm 1.7 instead - an awesome lens.
14-42 is good I think. Is there not a newer and older version of that same lens though?
I'd definitely get the Pen.
That E-PL1 for £280 is starting to look attractive. It comes as standard with a 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens (should be OK as a starting point?) and is at least £20 cheaper than any of the more expensive compacts I listed
You can pick up the 17mm pancake for £130-ish (used) on ebay when you need it or as grum suggested a cheap manual focus lens is surprisingly easy to use for stuff that's not running around and would be a good experiment to see if you really need to buy the 17.
I've just bought a 35mm f1.8 fujinon CCTV lens from hong-kong (ebay). £17 new! Another £10 for an adapter. It would be great for baby photos as not only does it need very little light you can really throw the background out of focus. A couple of my test shots:
Wow, I read the E-PL1 review and now I really want one 
Truly utterly bonkers VFM!
Well i've finally made my mind up then, i'm going to go for the E-PL1.
Big thanks to you all for advice etc. If I hadn't come here I'd probably be getting something quite different! I've just got to choose where to get it from now, John Lewis or Jessops. I would normally go John Lewis, but should I be supporting a specialist camera retailer, or are Jessops weasels?
Jessops are the argos of camera shops. Go for the best deal.
I've got a Canon S90 which is brilliant, very small and takes super pics with it's bigger sensor. Recently we bought a Pani TZ8 (for the bigger zoom and HD vid). We decided the extras on the TZ10 were mostly gimmicks or things that we wouldn't use.
John Lewis offer lifetime refunds.
Jessops price match, I believe.
A quick hound around online would suggest that pricing is fairly consistent (amongst reputable sellers, anyway). I'd suggest going round a couple of stores and seeing how much free crap you can blag for them to seal the purchase.
Do you reckon a chain store like Jessops would give freebies with an already discounted camera?
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