Rene, really happy to hear that, and also great to have you active on the blog.  I'd love to get your thoughts on anything & everything; you can just post in www.danielodio.com/community .  I look forward to having some great conversations there.

Yeah these new Micro 4/3 cameras are incredible.  They really fill a gap in the market.  I just never felt that the DSLRs were practical for taking around with me on a regular basis.  So this new category is exactly what I was looking for, and I'm super happy with the Lumix GX1 so far.  Now I just have to figure out how to completely use it!  

Also, I haven't forgotten about your other question regarding the HDR image I took.  I'm going to write a separate blog up about that sometime in the next week or so.

The NEX-7 scored a bit higher than the Lumix on DP Review.  But at double the price of the Lumix, I felt that the marginal improvement wasn't worth the cost.  However since my goal is to learn to take insanely great pictures, I might regret that tradeoff!  We'll see.  I'd totally be open to your opinion on this.

BTW one other reason I was OK with the tradeoff was the awesome BurningMan blog that Trey did, which I reference in the post above.  That really opened my eyes that the camera is just one piece of the puzzle.  He took some pretty amazing photos with cameras that weren't as good as the GX1.  So my gut tells me that this camera will more than handle my skill level for a while to come.

Jeremy, yeah EXACTLY re: "the camera you have with you."  I already find that I'm throwing this Lumix camera in by bag, which is something I'd never do with a DSLR.  So it's working on that front, as I'd hoped it would.  Having the smaller power zoom lens is key though -- with the $469 version it was just a little too big -- I had to disassemble the lens from the body to throw it in my bag, which kept me from taking it around with me.  So that little difference made all the difference.  It's worth spending the extra $200 so you end up having it with you.

re: video -- yeah so video was very secondary for me.  You're right, all the cameras in this range are good but not great.  By good I mean yes, 1080 dpi resolution, but no external audio mic jack on the camera, for example (which to me is a glaring omission; such a  simple thing to do).  But since I was primarily focused on photos for this, I didn't let any video pros & cons influence my decision.  I'm doing this for fun vs. work, and so I'm still carrying a Kodak zi8 around with me for video (You can find a full review of the zi8 and my sub $500 video rig set up right here.)

@tekknolagi, what about your photoblog is it you think I'll like?

Great to hear from you Laura! Thanks for the tip!

I second Daniel's comment....Laura is an AMAZING photographer.

Laura, first of all, it's INCREDIBLE that you're posting here.  You are seriously my hero when it comes to photography.  For those that don't know Laura, she is the owner of www.beautifuldayphotography.com in Los Angeles.  She's an award-winning photographer, and she takes incredible photos, like this one of me and my co-founders:

OK so, back to your comment, Laura:

Yeah I have totally tried Photomatix Pro.  It was also recommended as a "must-have" tool by Trey Ratcliff. I used it to take this photo of our friend's back-yard (this was one of my first Photomatix pics): 

As you can see, my friend Keoni was moving, so he's blurry, but overall I think the picture really highlights the beauty of the HDR approach -- the light on the ivy, for example.  So I'm impressed with Photomatix already.  I just have to learn how to use it with moving subjects across multiple exposures.

PS Rene -- that's the answer you were looking for in regards to how I make the HDR pictures "pop" -- I either use one of Trey's presets in Lightroom (he sells a bundle of them for something like $20 -- well worth it) or I use Photomatix Pro.

Here's a picture of Carmen I took using the Lumix GX1.  I didn't use Photomatix on this one; I just used one of Trey's HDR presets:

Now that is pretty cool!  I wonder how well it would work with the GX1, since it has a short lens.  Regardless, good find!

I've done a test now on the three SD cards.  The winner from a value perspective (lowest latency w/ largest card capacity) was the 45mbps card.  You can see the full test here: http://danielodio.com/community/micro-sd-card-shootout-the-need-for-speed

The EOS-M is a super interesting camera.  It looks like Amazon is selling it for $799 w/ the pancake lens.  Here are some of my initial thoughts:

• The pancake lens doesn't have a zoom, and the F-stop appears to be 2.0 at its lowest.  By comparison, for $649 you can buy a Lumix with a very compact zoom lens, which the EOS M doesn't seem to have -- the zoom lens is huge!  And the Lumix has a 1.7 F-stop apherical pancake lens that everyone seems to love -- that's probably the next lens I'd get.  Since I'm going for compactness (more likely that I'll actually have the camera with me), I'd want to have a compact lens.  So, I'd rather have a compact zoom lens by default, which is what the Lumix has.
• However, a huge plus for the EOS M is that the sensor is larger.  And large sensors = better pictures.  So that's definitely a plus.
• The EOS M doesn't have a built-in flash.  That's not a problem for most circumstances, although there have been a few times that I've been glad to have the flash.  
• I love that the EOS M has an input jack for video.  It's stupid that the Lumix doesn't.  I haven't taken much video at all, though -- it's just such a pain to edit video vs. just using Socialcam with the iphone.
• My hunch is that the lack of physical buttons on the EOS-M would be painful, but I'd have to try the screen to really say for sure.  I do like having quick access to various functions via buttons vs. having to hunt through a menu screen.