Anyone know about bridge cameras?

kansalliskala · Expire: 2016-12-30

I'm thinking of getting my wife a new camera since I sold her Nikon D3200 few months ago. She hates changing lenses and fiddling with RAW.

So the camera should produce nice colourful in-camera jpg-s, have good close distance capabilities, "zoom", viewfinder (ok - that's my demand) and at least 16mpix. My candidates are so far Nikon P610, Canon SX60, Panasonic FZ72, Sony HX400 and Olympus SP100EE.

Prices vary from 300â‚¬ (Olympus) to about 500 â‚¬ (Canon).

But the main feature has to be image quality right from the camera.

Any ideas?

Karhallarn · Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 577

Why not get a M4/3rds camera and a superzoom lens?

Small, much better image quality than the suggested superzooms and those superzoom-lenses have generally decent close-up capabilities!

If it had to be a bridge camera, I would look for a used Sony RX10 or Panasonic FZ1000!

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Buy always biggest and latest sensor what you can afford, this rule is always valid if you would like to have possible best image quality. On most compact shoot in full resolution , weak performance of small sensor is visible. Sony NEX-3 was a huge step up from Panasonic G1 , Sony NEX-7 was also from Sony NEX-3..
If you get bored with changing lenses I still suggest a good MILC with good lens than any bridge camera.

Lloydy · Expire: 2022-01-01

One of the guys I followed on flickr ages ago took some of the best pictures of , and up in all weathers , of the English lake district that I've ever seen. THese were pictures that were published in a very nice book, and all taken on an early Panasonic Lumix. I spend as much time as I can in the Lake District and take a lot of pictures there, and I'm in awe of his pictures. I can't get a link to his pictures at the moment but I will try when I get home.
It really is an example of someone getting the best from something that is often thought of as second rate,.

tb_a · Expire: 2019-08-28

It goes without saying that the bigger sensor cameras will deliver ultimately the better quality pictures.
But it strongly depends on the planned size of the final picture when printing. For display on screen only it doesn't play such an important role.
For many people even a smart phone is good enough. My wife is more than happy with her 13MP Sony camera of her Chinese Android phone.
It's therefore nearly impossible to recommend anything for an unknown person without knowing some more personal preferences.
I think any of those mentioned cameras will produce useful pictures up to a certain size.
A good way to narrow it down is the camera feature search from dpreview: http://goo.gl/h2iYhk and their side by side comparison: http://goo.gl/CHT5aQ
At least I would do it like that and look afterwards for test reports for the final decision.

Just my 2 cents.

Aanything · Expire: 2014-05-30

Probably I'd buy a sony rx100 mkII: it's compact, it has a kind of big (1") sensor, a 3.6x zoom with f1.8 max aperture at the wide end, and 20.2 megapixels resolution, that would allow some quite severe cropping. It's not the latest version, but it fits comfortably in the budget.

kansalliskala · Expire: 2016-12-30

Tried SX-60 and P610 in shop. Canon felt much better and had way better real world macro capabilities.

Minolfan · Joined: 30 Dec 2008 Posts: 3439 Location: Netherlands

I had Panasonic FZ5 and FZ28 (still using that one).
Great compact bridge camera's.
So a newer one should be a perfect choice, I believe.
Great zoom power and good IQ.

Teo · Joined: 19 Jul 2014 Posts: 1079 Location: Romania

kansalliskala · Expire: 2016-12-30

kansalliskala · Expire: 2016-12-30

So we finally ordered a Canon 100D ..

Whoo Turtle