Cameras that made to the short list are Canon G11, SX10 IS, Panasonic Lumix G1, and Olympus Pen EP1.
Sony does not produce P&S with external flash anymore. It seems that the last model was DSW-828. Sony was kicking everybody’s behind with that camera back in the days. They announced it in August of 2003. The camera still looks as an attractive choice, despite the size and hefty 2 pounds weight.The Zeiss T* lens that comes with it makes up most of the camera size, and I can tolerate the heaviness because all of it is wholesome glass and heavy duty metal body. Nice camera… if I could get it for 250 dollars, I will not think twice.
Canon PowerShot G11 is the best choice. It is syncing at 1/2000 of a second without any hacks. Canon guys are definitely plaining on riding the wave of people like me – obsessed by off camera flash. My PocketWizard will stay in the hot shoe most of the time. But, alas, 70% of coverage of the optical viewfinder – Canon, you must be joking…
Second choice is PowerShot SX10 IS. This camera is no G11 of cause, but it can be hacked neatly using CHDK hack firmware add-on. SX10 IS as well as G11 can do wanders with this hack. Syncing at 1/60000 of a second, motion detection shooting that can take a picture of lightening, time lapse shooting and many other neat things, including playing games on the camera.
Panasonic Lumix G1 has an interchangeable lens mount. This is cool, but is pretty much all cool things about it. Image quality is not on par with the G11. The lens could be Leica, because it is supposed to be a high end camera. Panasonic puts Leica on the much lower class cameras. This cheapens the brand somewhat, but it is hard to screw up Leica name. It is the legend of photography. The electronic viewfinder is somewhat attractive because it is nice and bright, right form the Panasonic professional video cameras. In the later models Panasonic dropped this viewfinder. I am not sure if I can have very short sync speeds with this camera thought. Can anybody tell me? I will be happy to hear from you.
