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It is a truism that technology changes at fantastic speed. It's quite embarrassing for a technology writer that, often, in the time between writing about a product and the review appearing in print, it has been superseded by something better.

Other changes come more slowly and subtly, however, and even though someone like me tries to be alert to the way the techie wind blows, I will sometimes recognise a significant trend only after it's hit the streets.

It was by observing tourists in London over the summer, for instance, that it dawned on me that higher-end digital cameras have become absurdly unwieldy.

Obviously, I'm not talking about compacts here. If today's superb little point and shoot cameras became any more compact, we'd be losing them in our pockets. No, I'm thinking about DSLRs — the £300-ish to £2,000 digital equivalents of the SLRs by Nikon, Pentax, Canon and Minolta that photographers used happily from the 1950s until 2002 or so.

The weird thing about modern DSLRs is that they are so much bigger and heavier than their 35mm film predecessors. The smallest look like old SLRs in the throes of a nasty bout of elephantitis. The larger models are the size of kitchen appliances.

This development is counterintuitive. Old style SLRs had to house a canister of film and a mass of cogs, wheels and, sometimes, motors, to transport it. Why are serious DSLRs so big? Well, they are complex machines, and they usually spout high power zoom lenses. Beyond that, I don't quite understand. I often wonder if they contain mostly air, as some fancy hi-fi equipment does.

The crazy thing is that most people using these over-specified, obese devices, I find, don't take them out of point-and-shoot mode. Plus they end up resembling paparazzi, which I would venture is not a fantastic look.

Fortunately, the cleverer camera producers are wise to the paradox that technology has bizarrely expanded rather than miniaturised cameras. Over the past two years, a new, still not widely understood breed of miniaturised serious camera, in a format called Micro Four Thirds has quietly emerged.

These wonderful hybrid cameras offer the kind of image quality you can only get from big DSLRs, thanks to an image sensor eight times the size of the one in your typical compact. They can take a variety of lenses, as serious photographers demand, but lack the bulk and complexity of the big Berthas.

At well under £1,000, often under £500, Micro Four Thirds cameras are, then, the ideal next level for owners of digital compacts who want a quality camera with a similar size and feel to the ones they're used to.

Olympus started the MFT ball rolling with their retro-looking PEN cameras, as advertised on TV by Kevin Spacey. I have been using PEN cameras for fun and semi-professional assignments for over a year and I can confirm that they don't just look cool — the photos have survived the scrutiny of demanding magazine picture editors. This year, they added a further miniaturised edition, the gorgeous E-PL1.

Panasonic joined the party very quickly with a variety of MFT models, my favourite of which is the Lumix GFC-DM1. Samsung are on the case with their rather ungainly looking NX-10 and other manufacturers, as per my opening paragraph, may be launching MFT cameras by the time you read this.

Then, just a few weeks ago, Sony upset the still shiny new applecart with the smallest and, in many ways, most ambitious mini-sized professional feature camera yet. Its NEX-3 and NEX-5 cameras, starting at around £500, are a stage beyond MFT — they have a bigger sensor chip, yet a smaller body — and I don't think I'm imagining things when I say that the photos I have produced with the Sony NEX-5 are a fraction better still than their rivals.

You need to pick up a Sony NEX to appreciate how light it is. But even though I spent a terrific week on a trip with the NEX-5, I still haven't kicked my Olympus E-P1 and E-P2 out of bed. The EP-2 has an electronic viewfinder I love that the NEX doesn't (yet) have. Even so, the NEX has enough tasty functions to make me look hard at getting one soon.

Unless, of course, something else even more enticing appears before then.

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