0:00 on this channel I have reviewed a lot of small cameras some of them good some of them not so good so today I'm going to brutally Rank 10 of the smallest cameras that I've ever tested to create what I'm going to call Tom's amazing list of the best and also not the best small mirrorless cameras featuring a mystery guest yes that's right as an added bonus I have a special guest with me who will be making an appearance at some point in this video to throw in their miniature camera into the mix so let's get started with a good one and that's the Panasonic Lumix gm1 which is actually behind me let me find it oh come here now I actually bought this a little while back and paired it with a super Slimline manual focus pancake lens which is certainly not this thing and that's because I was going away on a ski trip and I just needed something that would fit into my pocket that I could just pull in and out every now and again I
0:46 also wanted something with a decent size sensor so that hopefully it would capture images with a fairly good dynamic range and plenty of detail and this thing seemed to tick all of the boxes in fact I liked it so much I kept hold of it in fact it's the only camera in this lineup which I haven't either sold or given back after testing which probably should say a lot now I'll confess I haven't really used this camera all that much since the trip but I do really have a soft spot for it I said it's far from being perfect because the main gribe I have with it is that the raw images can get a little bit noisy if you push it too hard in Lightroom and the autofocus certainly isn't the greatest obviously if you're using a manual focus lens like I was it's not so much of a problem but overall I would confidently say that this is probably one of my favorite small cameras today and so I am going to
1:31 put this in the a tier back home on your shelf you go young man next up is what I have officially crowned as the world's smallest interchangeable lens mirrorless camera and that's the Samsung NX Mini for some reason nobody seems to have an official scientific verdict as to which mirrorless camera is the world's smallest maybe because nobody actually cares but I do all right I do so in this short video up here I actually calculated the volume of the top contenders and the NX Mini came out as the smallest of the bunch probably anyway if you actually saw my original review on the Samsung NX Mini I actually ended up taking this thing with me on a short trip to Calgary in Alberta Canada which is now the place cycle home as it turns out it was a great choice for the trip because this camera is just so
2:18 lightweight and Slimline it Glides in and out of your jeans pocket with ease even with the 9mm prime lens attached to it for a camera that was made 10 years ago now I just remember it being really quick not only to shoot and focus but it also booted up within like 2 seconds wow it has a flip screen which unfortunately the gm1 doesn't have it's okay we still like you it's fine and it's also touch sensitive which is really handy when you're dealing with a small camera because fiddly little buttons can get a bit annoying like I said the AF was fast and accurate and I mean honestly I can't think of many things that I didn't like about it I guess maybe the choice of lenses does suck a little bit because there's only three read to actually pick from so that's not a huge amount of choice but that didn't bother me all that much to
3:04 be honest the price also sucks they are extremely expensive to buy these days I think I paid around £600 for the camera and two lenses which is pretty gross I actually ended up selling this camera which I do regret even to this day but the reason I did that is because I didn't feel like I was going to use it enough now because I'm constantly testing out new cameras and lenses each week I've always got something else that I really need to be shooting with so I didn't want this thing rotting in a draw some where because that felt like a bit of a waste but if I didn't do this whole thing as a job I absolutely would have kept hold of it and it would almost certainly be my everyday carry along and for that reason I think I'm going to have to put this one in the S tier on a side note Samsung or somebody from Samsung if you're listening please come back to us start making mirrorless cameras again you did a great job before or even just update the NX Mini just for
3:51 a laugh I'd appreciate it thanks so also on that same trip to Canada I also took along another camera and that camera has created a fair amount ount of controversy should we say on this channel in the past and that's the sigma FPL now if you don't already know aside from making awesome lenses Sigma do occasionally delve into the world of cameras too but whenever the guys at Sigma do that they just can't seem to help themselves and they always end up making something that's a little bit out there to be fair the FPL I would say is probably one of the more normal cameras that they've made today other than the fact that it's absolutely tiny and still manages to house a full-frame 61 mapix sensor making it one of if if not the smallest fullframe camera ever made the other small camera being the original FP which was released before this one now as a result the image quality is top
4:38 tier as you would expect and I was absolutely Blown Away by the detail that this thing was able to capture you can also do some pretty crazy video stuff too including 4K 12-bit raw capture but all of that comes with a few caveats and problems of its own so I've discussed that in Greater detail in the full video up here if you're interested anyway this camera has a very very dedicated fan base and usually they get a little bit touchy with me if they sense I'm about to say anything even remotely bad about their beloved FP so if you happen to be a fan of the sigma FP or the FPL then for the next few seconds can you please just turn down your speaker volume and just read the subtitles at the botom of the screen just trust me on this one okay have you done it okay good Anson that includes
5:23 you too mate I know you're watching okay so fundamentally this is not a completely terrible camera the image quality is very very good the video specs are wild as I've already mentioned and the autofocus is plenty good enough but unfortunately it's also played by a whole list of let's call them design quirks that I personally think make this a fairly irritating camera to use so for that reason I am going to stick this one in tier C and just pray that the FP fans won't find my new home address okay you can turn the volume back up now volume back up good we good what a great camera am I right probably the best of this century I would say don't hurt my family okay so moving on to the next camera we have the Pentax qs1 which I reviewed not too long ago actually now this is widely
6:10 considered as the OG of small mirrorless digital cameras and I remember absolutely loving many of the features that this thing offers for such a tiny camera the design and handling is honestly pretty faultless I completely get now why so many people loved these things when they first came out and they still continued to love them even in 2024 I also love how Pentax put ND filters into some of their lenses which is absolutely genius and I wish it was a feature that was included on more lenses of them honest overall this camera system is pretty faultless apart from one fairly significant issue and that's image quality now that tiny compact size sensor just isn't going to be much use in low light and even when shooting on a bright sunny day when you push the raw files too much afterwards it does generate a fair bit of noise and when
6:55 you compare the image quality generated by this camera to all of the other cameras in this lineup when you zoom into the photos the results do look a little bit mushy and that means you can't really crop in too tightly or you're going to risk degrading your shots too greatly and ultimately it's great that the camera has so many cool features and handles really well and looks good but if at the end you're left with a result that's pretty average to be fair then for me that's kind of a deal breaker so I think it deserves a place in the B tier and honestly if the image quality was just even a little bit better this would definitely be in the a tier or maybe even even in the S tier up next is another tiny camera I have taken with me on my travels and that's the Olympus epm1 which is actually the smallest mirrorless camera that Olympus ever made now I actually brought this along with me to a trip to Osaka in
7:42 Japan and it really was a great travel companion I think this camera's biggest sin though is that it's ugly as Sin he you but looks aside it's honestly a really handy little pocketable pointing shoot especially if you pair it with an equally small lens if I remember rightly they're pretty affordable too because not many people are buying them probably because of their questionable looks but the autofocus is fast and accurate the image quality was very good the only thing that really makes it lose points for me is maybe the handling because it is pretty slippery to hold and the buttons and DS I remember being very small and fiddly so although I do have a soft spot for this epm1 it's certainly not the best camera in this lineup and so it's going to find itself in the B tier right it's now that time to reveal our special guest and I don't know why
8:28 I'm doing this with my hands but who else would be more fitting for this video than the queen of tiny cameras herself Emily or as you probably know her micro four nerds the Lumix gm5 is probably my all-time favorite tiny camera it's probably the most premium tiny camera ever made as well it has a magnesium alloy body it's about the size of a pack of cards it's absolutely tiny and it even has a back thumb dial so you can actually use it more like a traditional larger camera it feels like a small camera without very many compromises you even have a hot shoe and an evf it's crazy but most importantly it comes in fun colors it's a camera that's so nice I've bought it twice I have this red version and I'm still on the lookout for what can only be described as the lumpy Green version you'll see what I mean if we put a
9:14 graphic on screen it's such a strange camera and it's hideous and I have to have it so I think the gm5 is versatile it's small it's powerful and it deserves to be really high on your teer list well after that glowing review I am very tempted to put this in the S tier but seeing as I've not actually handled or tested this camera myself yet I am going to have to be cautious here and place it on the border between the S and a TI oh and if you haven't already be sure to head over to Emily's Channel and check out her full review of the gm5 next up is the Nikon 1 J5 and if you're not familiar with this range of cameras that's probably because this was part of Nikon's first ever attempt in producing mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras and after just a few years the whole nickon one system was scrapped now the reason why I picked this J5 model out of the total of 11 nickon one cameras that
10:00 were ever produced is that firstly it's definitely the best looking one of the bunch and secondly it's one of the last cameras that they ever made for this range and therefore includes a lot of more modern features handling wise it's super lightweight super small and generally a complete joy to use if you can forgive this annoying Wi-Fi button that if you press it accidentally locks up the entire camera which is infuriating but that's aside I do absolutely love this camera just how quick and quiet it is the AF is lightning fast the fast readout speeds mean that you can shoot with an electronic shutter and not have to worry too much about rolling shutter it's just a very small and stealthy camera that I think is absolutely perfect for candid styles of Photography like street now as much as my gut is telling me put this in
10:46 the S tier I just can't honestly do that mainly because of that stupid Wi-Fi button if that wasn't a thing it would be right up there at the top but as it stands I'm going to punish it and drop it down to 80 which is still a pretty good rating to be fair no you know what actually it's going to sit on the line it's going to sit on the line between A and S and it can sit there and think long and hard about what it could have been so this is the nxc 3 and not only is it one of the smallest and lightest mirrorless cameras that Sony has ever released it's also one of the oldest but that also means that it's one of the most affordable cameras in this entire lineup which is certainly a plus point and I think I remember buying this for just under $100 I think it was which for a camera with a large apsc size sensor is pretty crazy it also uses the same Sony E lens mount as all of Sony's
11:34 current mirrorless cameras so that means that the lenses you buy for this thing will be compatible with newer and more expensive models should you eventually upgrade to one of those later down in the line and that means that this is a pretty good starter option the image quality is great the AF although a little bit sluggish by today standards is still perfectly usable and it does have just about everything you would want in terms of features all of that said I can't say I love it they get me wrong it's incredibly practical and affordable and a great beginner camera but the build quality does feel very cheap and plasticky and it just feels a little bit soulless but in another way it's probably not a camera that you would go out and buy and then rush out to all of your mates to go and tell them about it so for that I am going to have to put this one in the C tier now
12:19 speaking of mid cameras here's the Canon EOS M3 now this is by no means the smallest mirrorless camera made by Canon I think that award goes to the M2 but be sure to correct me in the comments below if I'm wrong about that however it's certainly the smallest Canon camera that I've ever tested so I thought it was probably worth throwing into the mix now on paper this is a very capable camera offering a nice large apsc size sensor and along with it good image quality the build quality is also really good there are a ton of buttons and dials which I really liked and the larger hand grip especially makes it nice and easy to hold but the biggest grip for me was the AF compared to all of the other cameras that we' spoken about in the lineup the AF on this thing is by far the worst now just to be clear that's not me saying that it's terrible or completely
13:05 unusable it's just not that great compared to the other options that we've looked at so far and I do remember it feeling noticeably slow to lock onto targets which did bug me a little bit kind of hard to describe without sounding too harsh but nothing really excites me about this camera I feel kind of indifferent towards it it's how you would say n now I am very tempted to put this in TC but I do think that is pretty harsh considering that the only thing I have bad to say about this camera is that the AF is a bit slow and that is let's be honest to be expected for older cameras so I'm going to find a compromise and stick it in no man's land between tier B and C okay so I've arguably saved one of the best to last I mean it's probably one of my favorite cameras at least the Fujifilm xm1 now the reason why I like this camera so much isn't necessarily because it's the
13:50 fastest or offers the best features it's just because it's one of those cameras that really intrigues me it has a pretty weird backstory as it was kind of like the awkward third album for Fujifilm they released the X pro 1 which was a big hit then there was the xe1 which was also a big hit then they thought we've got this we've nailed it boys Third Time Lucky let's go and then they came out with the xm1 and it didn't do so well which is kind of weird to be honest because it offers pretty much all of the same features as its older siblings minus an evf and it still ended up not selling very well but I have covered many of those reasons up here in this video if you're interested now I did say at the start of this video that the Lumix gm1 was the only camera in this lineup that I ended up keeping and not selling which is true because I did sell the xm1 shortly afterwards again because
14:37 I bought an X Pro 2 and I didn't use the xm1 blah blah blah but technically I still own an xm1 you can probably see it down here but this is not a standard xm1 as I've covered in a recent video This is actually an xm1 that has been converted to shoot IR now this was a after just version ones we never got to see anything other than the XM one but it was replaced spiritually by the XA range which I have an example of here and this also appears to have been axed H but the reason why I prefer this XM over the XA range is because these are very much plasticky and don't have a proper XTR sensor this xm1 has a nice solid metal build and just feels way more premium now that said this camera is by no means perfect the AF is not the fastest there are very few customizable
15:23 buttons and the video record button on the back here is very easy to knock and you end up filming your feet half the time but even so I still love this camera probably because I am a huge sucker for vintage inspired cameras it is well known and probably because I have a soft spot for it because it's an underdog do I want to put this in the a tier category yes is that a same thing to do well looking at the other cameras below it absolutely not so let's make a compromise and stick it between tier A and B and as a result we've probably ended it with the most indecisive looking ranking chart I have ever seen now looking at this final rundown I'm going to be honest I didn't think that the Samsung would be the only s tier camera on this list but here we are I guess I just really appreciate the Samsung Simplicity and the fact that it just works it didn't give me any headaches it did exactly what I needed it to do and for a small camera it
16:10 really does tick all the boxes it's fast reliable easily pocketable and captures a damn good photo when you need it so what more could you want an evf the the answer to that question is an evf if you wondering bye
