Reddit reviews Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GM5 DSLM Mirrorless Camera with Eye Viewfinder, 12-32mm Lens Kit (Black) - International Version (No Warranty)

Tripod shot is Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM5 running a Sigma 350963 60mm F2.8 DN prime lens.

Handheld is Panasonic LUMIX GX85 with Lumix 25mm F1.7 prime lens.

I use fnord's WebM premiere plugin to export clips from the original film in WebM VP9. GFYCAT doesn't convert them so you are seeing full quality on your end.

I'd contradict /u/zman2596 though he has a point, especially against the apparently resident Fujiholic on this sub .

You're at the price point where there's nothing really that serious, and at the same time there's nothing that easy to use from a learning photography perspective.

The problem is, as I've said before on this sub, you're comparing a $600 phone against another device that broadly speaking, shares the same sort of subsystems though obviously with different priorities. But because phone prices are distorted by contracts people don't realise the true cost of things. You can't realistically expect a $200 new device to do something a lot better that a 2-year-old $600 device can do.

Is an L830 / SX530 sensor better than the iPhone 5c? Yes, but barely despite the megapixel disparity - and it'll get worse as the light levels go down. At portrait distances indoors for example, these cameras will actually be consistently worse than any reasonably recent iPhone. You do have the zoom and it's certainly a novelty at first, but really unless you're capturing wildlife a 30x zoom is rarely that useful. Do they offer any kind of meaningful control to learn about photography? No, cameras at this price range are rife with control limitations. Burst shooting? At greatly lowered resolution or if at full resolution, having the camera lock up until it can flush the buffer to card (slowly, in the case of budget cameras).

I understand your desire to get her something new, but $200 just ain't going to cut it for something that will actually get used more than a phone. You are, honestly IMO, better off upgrading the phone for the time being to get a better camera if your hard limit for spending is $200. $500 is a better place to start from for anything new (unfortunately), and ~$300 the absolute minimum for something like the E-PL6 (though this cheap spec comes with a giant lens)

How relatively giant? Well you can see here - and I think it's a factor since one of the main reasons a lot of people don't carry cameras around is that they're too big to fish out in a hurry:

http://camerasize.com/compact/#460.92,570.397,569,332,ha,t

E-PL6 + IR lens $300, GM5 + 12-32 lens $500, LX100 $600, RX100 >$400.

The GM5 is a handy go-anywhere which while cramped (and not as much of an issue for small hands), gives you all the controls you need to pick up photography and does it in a pretty intuitive, snappy way complete with a touchscreen that works and responds as most people expect - and obviously, gives you room to grow via interchangeable lenses. It also has a (relatively crappy, but totally usable) viewfinder. I shoot Leicas mainly for the tactility and handling, and I find when I veer outside of the Red Dots the Panasonic OS has a lot in common with the Leica OS (not a coincidence), and they think about the usability of controls more than they're given credit for. And while I can poke lots of holes in the GM5, as a grown-up yet very compact camera with room to grow for someone with small hands that is actually likely to be carried around, it actually comes to the top of my list.

The Olympus E-PL range was apparently developed specifically for women (by Japanese guys, remember) but does still retain some advanced controls. It was also designed to be shipped with a much more compact lens than the II IR is on the $300 spec, which you can find on the $500 E-PL7 or the $650 E-M10.

The RX100 is... well, everyone's written about it but basically whatever version you buy it is the premier point and shoot compact with at least usable advanced controls.

The $6-700 LX100 is one of the best handling compact cameras I've used - beating out the slow and compromised Fujis, even the massively overrated $1300 X100T, and one of the best to learn the fundamentals of photography on IMO. The major black mark however is the image quality is sometimes hard to tell from an iPhone 6s or a DSLR from 8-10 years ago (the low light performance is better, but in daylight it can sometimes be the case).