small sensor digital camera

Not having owned small sensor cameras for many years, I have to say I am positively surprised by the speed and image quality of my new Nikon P7100. I bought it for digiscoping duty but it looks set to replace my Ricoh GXR as backup and walk around camera. Its ISO 1600 is better than ISO 250 on cameras from a few years ago, and in fact is not far behind the same setting my D300s and Ricoh GXR if you're not looking too closely - very useful in other words. Dynamic range and color fidelity seem about the same as well, focus speed is slower than the SLR but not nearly as slow as I was used to. Everything else works like a charm and the ergonomics are great, almost as flexible as the Ricoh. Every button makes sense. Even the tiny viewfinder is relatively sharp and OK in a pinch.

All in all, I'm going to take this camera as my only camera next holiday and expect it will perform admirably. So far I'm a happy camper! No doubt Nikon will introduce its CX chip in the successor and if they do, the only material difference between big and small sensor compacts will be control over depth of field.

EJ