The Perfect Compact Camera

I must admit that many of my ideas about the perfect small camera are not my own. In my quest for this camera, I've come across a number of people who have described the problem and the potential solutions much better than I. My undisputed authority on this subject is Mike Johnston who runs and authors The Online Photographer blog (I plan to devote a Thinking on Paper post to Mike sometime in the future). Back in 2006 he wrote a short treatise on what he called the "decisive moment digital" that is must reading if you have any interest in this sort of thing. A free copy of this six-page paper is available here. If you search his blog for "DMD" you will find a lot of additional thinking and commentary on this elusive piece of equipment.

The other excellent source for thinking along small camera lines is Thom Hogan, who maintains a site devoted to all things Nikon. In 2007, he wrote an article titled "Thom's Compact Camera Challenge" where he offers to design the "DMD" since the major camera manufacturer's don't seem to want to.

Finally, if you want to read Mike commenting on Thom and measuring the Sigma DP1 against the "DMD" standard, there's a great article here. All of this is good thinking and great reading.