The canon will be better, but depends on how lit up Hong Kong will be, I'm currently in Seoul and have been to Tokyo, these cities never sleep with their light, a lot of the time its like day time during the night.

Maybe I can do a comparison for you, I have a 400D and a GF1. Both with high apertures.

Also another option, is the G2 significantly better in low light? I hear its ISO noise has improved. Perhaps getting a newer m43 body could be the trick?

With portability and travel on mind… How about just a monopod? I think you can make do with m4/3 with the added support of a monopod. I think you can stay in the 100 to 400 iso range. Just try not to expose for too long since that's where you get quite a lot of noise, at least on my GF1.

I use this one for video stability and occasional long exposure Monopod Camera Stand + Case Professional Aluminium NEW on eBay (end time 22-Aug-10 07:48:46 BST)

Also the GH1 is getting cheaper by the day, and it has better ISO. I hear that G2 is pretty much on the same level as GF1 with ISO :)

Why don't you consider renting a camera? Saves you the hassle of buying and selling. Renting a Nikon D3s eliminates all concerns about low-light pictures .

You might also consider buying a GH1 which seems to be better low-noise-wise and is not too different from your G1. And I would always bring the camera I know and love, the G1 in your case. You might want to include the optional viewfinder with an Olympus Pen E-P2 or E-PL1, depending on how you use the G1 now.

Your reactions to the other posts seem to indicate that you are fairly inexperienced. IMHO you should be wary to take a camera you don't know well to an important event . Every new camera takes me months to get really acquinted with its behaviour, and I have a history of 30 years in amateur photography with several systems used.

You say you are afraid that the G1 will let you down in low-light. So I suggest to shoot like hell with the G1 in low-light, in raw and jpg, and see what comes out. Then you know what it can do and what it can't. From my own experience: the G1 is OK up to ISO 400 and useable up to ISO 800 provided you don't underexpose. ISO 1600 can be useable depending on the subject and your sensitivity to noise, but I avoid it.

Another tip: if you're in doubt about shooting raw or jpg, shoot both. The G1 can be set to raw+jpg. I never shoot jpg, for me shooting raw is sort of an insurance. Once I have learnt a new trick I can go back to old pictures and improve them again and again.

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Vince, wait until you're there and then you may find one of those snazzy colourful Pentax K-x.
Anyway that'd be what I would do ... if I wanted another DSLR.



Hey you could sell it for loads of dosh back in Blighty : can't easily buy 'em here ... not in the colours anyway.

Tripods have been mentioned.

I would never do that. Either I'd change the system completely or I'd buy an additional camera in order to take photographs I cannot take with the gear I have. I would not sell everything, buy a camera, go for holiday, sell everything and buy the gear I had before. And I would never buy the Canon 550D in the hope that it is better in low light. DxOMark, which IMHO can be trusted, shows, that the Canon 550D is less than one stop better than the Panasonic G1 regarding to ISO (comparison between 55D and G1)! However, in your case I don't think that you need a different system anyway.

It would be much cheaper and, since your current camera feels just perfect to you, better to buy a good monopod like the Manfrotto M-Y 776YB with a Micro Ball Head 492, which is very light and easy to carry. Once you have learned how to work with a monopod (How To Use A Monopod & Multi-Purpose Tripod), you can take photographs in low light and low ISOs and your photographs will be sharper and cleaner than the ones you'd take with the Canon 550D with high ISOs

I don't think that you gain enough for the money the change would cost. And it's a bad idea anyway to choose a camera, which you've bought only recently and which you don't know well, for important tasks like your family holiday. You might miss some photographs, because you cannot operate your camera blindly or don't know what your camera can do and what not. There might be a technical problem like a decentered lens which you might see only afterwards.

I am fascinated by technology, too, and tend to do pixel peeping. However, it's only the bad pictures, where one sees the noise and feels disturbed by it. And there are programs like Lightroom 3, which do a great job in noise reduction.

You cannot carry a tripod with you all the time, but you can use a light and sturdy monopod whenever and wherever you like. There is nearly always something which you can lean a monopod against, which can replace a tripod completely after some training, and even if you don't have something to lean against, you will hold shutter speeds which are long enough for reasonable ISOs.

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Very helpful post pictor - and from a personal view, thank you for that link to "How to use a Monopod".

Here's a monopod that was recently recommended to me, though it is more expensive it does include a built in ballhead. Gitzo GM1130MT Monotrek Hiking Stick/Monopod - GM1130MT - B&H

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forgetting the pixel peeping and all, if this is already 100% set in stone, selling and re-buying mu43 will come to you as a loss. I would just keep the mu43, borrow to buy the canon, resell and then pay the interest on the 200ish you lost until you can pay it off rather than loosing yet another 200-300$ selling and re-buying the mu43 set.

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I think since the OP would use it for travel, that one is going to be a no-no - I wouldn't want to pack a $175 monopod, and good luck getting a spiked pole on a plane!

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Good points!

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how about a temporary swap with a friend who has dslr ?