I broke my Canon G9 a while back and can now get a replacement. For a few reasons I’ve narrowed it down to:
Panasonic LX5
Olympus ELP-1
OLympus YZ-1
Any opinions – the LX5 and the YZ-1 seem to as good a compacts get atm and I like the idea of additional lenses with the ELP-1

Any opinions?

i’ve got an LX5.

it’s a bit smaller than the other cameras friends/salesmen showed me.

the wide angle lens is fun.

i find the menu system easy to use – compared to others i’ve played with.

the large aperture and big sensor mean it can take pictures in the dark (nearly).

it doesn’t let me spend silly money on more lenses.

i like it a lot.

I’d get an e-pl1. Remarkable value for money. m4/3 lenses are expensive though so if you like the idea of getting ‘lots’ of lenses it’ll soon get very expensive. Old manual focus lenses work well and can be cheap.

you can also throw the Samsung EX-1 into that mix – I like mine lots, I got an adaptor for about £15 that lets me add standard 52mm filters. I works pretty well with huge a sigma flash I picked up for about £40 too

anyone else?

EPM1 would be my choice, not much more expensive to get current generation focus.

Panasonic LX5,just for the brand itself ! 🙂

The only drawbacks to the LX5 are no super-narrow depth of field (for blurring backgrounds, or other effects), and no long telephoto for sports/wildlife/other long shots.

If these bother you, then you’ll need a larger sensor camera with interchangeable lenses. But then you’ve got to look into whether the cost of the lenses is worth it, and whether the micro 4/3rds standard gives enough of the depth of field control that you desire.

Basically – if you didn’t find the Canon G9 limiting, get the LX5.

Did you like your G9?
Why not consider replacing it with the G12 or the Nikon equivalent; the P7100??

Do you mean the Olympus XZ-1 in your original post? I considered this for a while as it has a decent, bright lens.

I had an XZ-1 briefly, probably about as good as a compact gets – but I ended up selling it on and went back to a GF1 which can be picked up fairly cheaply – the fact is, you can get good picturtes on something like an LX5 or XZ-1 but IMO they’re just not in the same league as a m4/3 camera HTH

May not be as good on paper as any of those options, but I absolutely love my Ricoh GR-D.

It’s genuinely small enough to go in your pocket comfortably, and you can use all the controls with one hand. The menus are dead easy to navigate, and it all adds up to something I’m much more likely to pick up and take photos with than any of the newer, more ‘sophisticated’ cameras I’ve fiddled with in camera shops.

I’m still not a very good photographer though.