Samsung has thrown itself into the ring together with Olympus. The new Prototype has more in common with the Panasonic G1 than the beautiful Olympus, but competition has to be a good thing. Perhaps we will know more in the next few days, but I’m guessing Samsung is (once again) working together with Pentax on this thing. And Sony has to have some kind of similar mirrorless prototype down in their deep R&D dungeons. And if a few of these cameras actually start selling sometime, and start gaining market share, at some point Canon and Nikon have to do something about it.

I don’t really care what brand gets it right first, all I want is a compact, travel-friendly camera that can actually take reasonable pictures, with small, pocketable lenses and preferably an optical viewfinder (but I guess an EVF would do). Cameras like this are something we lost going digital, and it’s time to take them back. The first company to get it right gets my money…

Once upon a time, there where cameras like this…