Digital SLRs have dropped in price over the past few years, but still remain a big investment.  The trade off is ability to use a selection of lenses for different pictures, something that is especially attractive to someone who has a large collection of lenses from a non-digital SLR.  A company called Micro Four Thirds System might just have a solution that falls in between compact digicams and the SLRs, giving you the size and technology used in the compact cameras and providing you with the ability to swap lenses.  Digital Trends tried out their first offering and were quite impressed, with the caveat that there are still some maturing necessary for the product line.

“One of the biggest digicam breakthroughs in 2008 was the announcement of the Micro Four Thirds System. What’s that you say? You’ve never heard of it – unlike the Wall Street crash of ’08 or Obama’s landslide? Perhaps not, but it was big news for camera enthusiasts. In a nutshell, the system lets manufacturers build compact digicams that accept a wide variety of lenses, just like D-SLRs. Unlike popular digital single lens reflex cameras, there is no mirror mechanism, or optical viewfinder, so the new cameras are much smaller than typical D-SLRs. This is cool stuff, and we had Panasonic send us a sample of the new 12.1-megapixel Lumix DMC-G1 as soon as possible. For the record, Panasonic and Olympus are the prime movers behind the new format. In fact, they also are the key proponents of the original Four Thirds System found in current D-SLRs from the two companies; unlike the Micro Four Thirds, these cameras have mirror assemblies. We seriously doubt Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony will adopt either one. Does this new format make sense-and how does it perform? In a few clicks, you’ll know the answer.”

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk