Everybody wants more megapixels, but at some point you just can't fit any more onto a camera's sensor. What do you do then? If you're Olympus, you try something weird. The company's new, memorably-named OM-D E-M5 II has a 16-megapixel sensor like its predecessor, 2012's E-M5. But the E-M5 II has a trick up its sleeve: By taking several pictures in a row and shifting the sensor a microscopic distance each time, it can gather enough extra data to produce a 40-megapixel image with comparable quality to cameras with much larger sensors. (DP Review has some helpful diagrams if you're curious.)
The catch is that mode can only be used on stationary subjects, since the process takes a whole second to take all those pictures. The camera should still be popular with landscape and portrait artists, though — and since every other aspect of the already-excellent (and weather-resistant) E-M5 has been improved in this version as well, it's definitely one of the compact cameras to beat. A new electronic viewfinder, better video and burst modes, and lots more manual controls make this new $110 Olympus a good option for serious shooters looking for a smaller interchangeable-lens camera.
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