The best camera I ever had was my full frame Nikon D700. Unfortunately, it was robbed at gunpoint in Puno (Peru) when trying to take a photo of the Titicaca Lake last year. With it I also lost most of my pictures taken in East Africa. Good that my secondary camera, the Fuji X-100, remained a good companion - except some trouble with exposure when set at Aperture priority on the Antarctic Peninsula. For my lost D700 my wishes are that it finally found its way to a photo enthusiast - even I do not encourage to buy anything from the black market. For the robbers my wishes are that they either see the light of salvation, a cell in a Peruvian prison or get a bullet in their head as soon as possible. Anything which stops their dangerous practice is fine.
I was about to repurchase the D700, but then thought that I might adapt to my current life style by switching to a lighter and more flexible model, like a mirrorless SLR. After comparing specifications, I decided for the Sony NEX 7 with the 18-200 mm zoom lens. This is small enough for snap shots and good enough in terms of quality, even it is clearly in the consumer segment. Like currently no other mirrorless SLR the NEX 7 uses a normal size D-SLR size sensor.
What I found amazing of the NEX 7 in this configuration was not just the small size and full capabilities of a D-SLR camera. But also I first time experienced that the so-called "intelligent automatic settings" are really intelligent. Further the landscape stitching and anti blur programmes are quite amazingly accurate. Unless there is really scene where the camera can not "imagine" the image you have in your mind, the automatic functions are brilliant and you can put your mind in peace on composition or speed (if required).
The NEX 7 is nearly everywhere outside Japan sold out and you need to sign up on waiting lists to get it a few months later. But I was able to pick up one in the "Bigcamera" store which is 5 minutes walk West from Kyoto Japan Railway Station. Beware that there are two versions: a Japanese (only Japanese menus) one and the Worldwide model (which also has a worldwide warranty).