I plan to buy a secondary camera thats easier to carry around. I plan to spend around $350 to $400 on it. I am unable to decide if I should go for a low price Mirrorless camera like Olympus E-PM1 or a point and shoot camera which gives me a better optical zoom for the same price. I am looking for following in the camera
- Good image quality is my primary concern. I suppose Mirrorless wins here
- Ease of use, so that my wife can use it as well.
- Small and handy. I suppose P&S compact wins here
- Zooming. I am not sure on this point as you can buy a higher MM lens at later point of time. While a P&S can deliver 10x Optical zoom in the price range.
- Low light shooting.
I considered few Mirrorless models like
- Olympus E-PM1 - I think this looks good when compared to following models.
- Olympus E-PL2 - Is this an older model? E-PM1 looks like a better in terms of spec and performance
- Nikon 1 J1 - Pricer. E-PM1 performs better
- Camera Nikon 1 V1 - Almost same as 1 J1 with minor difference
In P&S the list is really long but more or less most of them have higher Megapixels and zoom. Is my assumption correct? And they are way economical than Mirrorless
- Sony CyberShot DSC-WX150 - 10x Optical zoom
- Nikon Coolpix S9100 Point & Shoot - 18x Optical zoom
Are there any existing thread which discuss on similar lines, which I can refer to? I could not search anything relevant. Most of the existing threads were not based on any research.
I understand this question is very subjective, so I have tried to include as many parameters as I could. For now I feel like going with Olympus E-PM1. At this point is there any P&S camera in the same price range which would perform better(or value for money) than Olympus E-PM1 in order of image quality, compactness and zoom.