Compact Cameras: Fuji X100T and Panasonic GM1 from Mark Farrington

I prefer these two cameras even to my Olympus OMD for photographing in the street: the smaller your camera the less you look like a photographer, and I just feel a lot less conspicuous and more relaxed doing it. People mostly ignore you, especially in touristy areas. With the Fuji you soon learn the fixed field of view (35mm full frame equivalent, f2.0) and you zoom with your feet. It feels very well made, handles pretty well, has an APSC sensor and gives reasonable results up to 3200ASA, but there's no image stabilization. The viewfinder's great for manual focussing, but I mostly rely on auto focus and shoot bursts of a few frames at 4fps when things look right. That copes with people blinking or having their hand momentarily obscuring their face. It's all nicely hair-shirt!

The GM1 looks just like a Point-and-Shoot, but has the same sensor as the midrange micro 4/3 mirrorless bodies. It has really fast single AF, markedly quicker than the Fuji, so is great for shooting from the hip or above your head. It has image stabilised interchangeable lenses from Panasonic (and all the Olympus lenses fit). I don't go above ASA1000. No viewfinder, but focus-and-shoot from the touch sensitive screen is really fast. It's very small with 'enthusiast' controls, so changing settings is a fiddle compared with the Fuji. Also aiding 'invisibility' for the photographer, both cameras have iPhone apps that let you shoot while it looks as though you're texting on your phone, and they have silent electronic shutters.