Bridge Camera for Bushcraft

[MK-MIKE]

Hi all,

I'm after a new camera, and I thought I would ask your advice

Currently I am 'borrowing' the wife's Pentax point and Shoot camera as my old Panasonic FZ7 was mislaid somewhere. I'm really after a bridge camera rather than a DSLR (me and lenses don't get on).


I have a budget of £350.

I had a quick look at Panasonic (having owned one before) and came across the FZ100 which I beleive is the replacement for the FZ45.

It kinda ticks the boxes for me which features like 14MP, Full HD recording, oh and hi-speed burst frame (11fps) faster is possible but at a massive compromise on image quality. The other nice feature is switch on time of around 2 seconds from on to shoot.

Are there suitable alternatives around that you could recommend please or views on this camera?

 

[maddave]

Sony Cybershot DSC HX1 is worth a gander. http://electronic-express1.amazonwe...-DSCHX1-DSCHX1-CyberShot-9.1/M/B001U3ZUWO.htm

 

[Woz888]

One thing to look out for is in what resolution and quality the images are saved. Some cameras have super dooper mega pixel imaging but then save the files in less than high quality formats. For this reason I continue to use my trusty old 4megapixel Canon Ixus because it saves in very large and super fine format and often out performs some of the newer "HD" cameras.

I spent a LOT of time reading up at http://www.dpreview.com/ before committing to buy, very glad I did.

 

[Ray Britton]

MK Mike

As a quick question. Do you have suitable equipment in your house to be able to play your recorded images back in HD?

I used to sell cameras, and very often folks would demand to have HD, only to discover that because they had no way of playing it back, it was a bit pointless to them.

The panasonic cameras you mention will be good, but also have a look at the latest casio bridge item. Many folks will not consider casio, and think they only make watches and keyboards lol, but casio actually invented the digi camera with LCD screen so do know exactly what they are talking about. Even some of the smaller casio's can take 40 shots per second, while others have screens you can see in bright daylight (no one else offers this properly).

 

[MK-MIKE]

Hi Ray,

Good point I've had people ask me to help set up new HD televisions and then moan because they aren't receiving HD picture (Freeview box not HD enabled or Sky box not the new HD variant etc. etc.). I have the necessary bits for viewing HD images and I have some basic video editing software that supports HD which I use for simple editing of video clips.

I'll be sure to have a look at the Casio and Sony Cybershot as suggested by Mad Dave.

>WOZ888 could you explain it a bit more. Do you mean that if the camera had say a 10MP CCD, could it save the image at a lower quality (let's say 6MP for example) or do you mean by file format (as in JPEG, RAW etc.) That has got me even more confused now

 

[bmartin1uk]

I'm an SLR man, but i had to get a Camera for the folks, who wanted something better than a point an shoot, but without the 'lens' hassle. Personally i'd get an SLR and stick a zoom on it and never change it, but if you must have a fixed lens - i got them them the Fuji Finepix HS10. Awesome camera with a surreal zoom on it! Its only 10fps, but has a great image stabilisation for that mahoooosive zoom, twist zoom ring, feels great to hold, shoots in HD and is under 300 quid, so you can spend the rest on a huge SD card.

 

[CAL]

I've got a Panasonic FZ28 and am very delighted with it, I've also recently bought my Dad a TZ7 which whilst not having the large diameter lens of a bridge camera it takes amazing pictures.

 

[Woz888]

>WOZ888 could you explain it a bit more ~ file format
Yep, you are spot on. How the image is saved is often the bottleneck which reduces quality. Saving in RAW is best and you can the post-process it yourself using appropriate software. If JPG is the only option, then look at the resolution options available in the prospective camera - it may be good news, but then it may not.

 

[Ray Britton]

Hi again

If I can just expand on Woz's comments, Re saving.

While it is true that there are different ways to save images, RAW is best suited to saving only if you intend to edit your photo at a later time. Of course many of the cameras mentioned do far will edit out in the field. the OP's choice of a bridge camera will almost totally negate any problems with quality due to the far better lens quality, as well as the massively improved sensor fitted to the camera. A sensor for an ixus is the size of a small thumbnail, whereas the sensor in a bridge camera is at least six times the area (so it could be said sees six times the detail). Add to this that the ixus (in question) has a max rating of 4mb, while any of the bridge cameras can easily shoot at 6mb (mid point quality, and up to 12mb for fine work) then the results are totally different. While they may look similar on a 7 x 5 photo, if you blow them up in size the compact shots soon start to look very poor.

Another poster mentioned spending loads on a good quality SD card, and I can only agree with this. While an £8 SD will save just as many pics, a £50 high speed SD card will be much quicker when working at high resolution. This difference in the cameras regain ability to take the next shot is quite noticeable.

If the OP is still looking, then pop into your local John Lewis (possibly a more friendly atmosphere than a camera shop) and have a play around with the bridge cameras. You may notice that ALL Sony products are at least £100 more expensive than their main competitors for no extra benefit, that the lenses and zooms on Fuji's can be wobbled (so shaky action shots), which will leave you looking at Panasonic, canon and Nikon (JL don't sell Casio)
In my own experience of dealing with bridge cameras, the Panasonics and canons have the best lenses fitted. Another reason for looking in JL store is that it is likely to be a lot larger than a camera shop, which allows you to pick an object at the far end of the store, and zoom in on that with various cameras. You can then compare the pics you take with each camera right there in the store.
I am not an expert with cameras, but did work with all major brands, selling around forty cameras per day, so did get a feel for them, as well as (much more importantly) customer feedback once the cameras were in use, which is something review guides cannot know!

Just a few ideas

 

[MK-MIKE]

Thanks for the kind advice everyone.

WOZ - Thanks for that, suddenly froze in fear at the thought of other issues/features to look at The camera can store RAW as well as JPG and even has a feature to save both file types simultaenously (no doubt at a reduction in 'write' time and memory!)

Ray - I took your advice and meandered over to John Lewis yesterday and finally had a chance to 'play' with some of the cameras. Managed to play with the HS10 and the Panasonic FZ100 (including getting to play with the OIS image stabiliser modes, which is quite good even on full zoom).
I then went on to Jessops and had a play with some other cameras including a DSLR (Nikon D1000) but that seemed to weigh a lot and it had LENSES (but being open minded I gave it a try).

I think I have decided on the FZ100 the buttons and menu were very simple, but that is probably because they were very similar to my old FZ7.

Just another quick question if I may be so bold. the Memory cards, I appreciate that apart from capacity I need good quality for the Write speed. I've seen cards sold with statements like Class 10 read/write???? Could someone explain this. Is that a good thing to look for? or what should I be looking for in a memory card?

Previously I have used Sandisk Extreme III SD cards in my other camera's

 

[alexnail]

Hi Mike,

I do landscape photography semi professionally and I combine wild camping with lugging around 6.5kg of camera gear, so I can understand people who want lighter gear!

Personally I would favor a Canon G10/G11 for what you are describing although neither of these do video, which I guess is a deal breaker. At any rate most modern bridge cameras in that price range take excellent images. As far as memory cards go, you cant really go wrong with the Sandisk Extremes. Hopefully the below information clears up some of the jargon.

Rating Write Speed(Mbit/s) Write Speed(MB/s)
6× 7.2
10× 12.0
13× 16.0 2
26× 32.0 4
32× 38.4 5
40× 48.0 6
66× 80.0 10
100× 120.0 15
133× 160.0 20
150× 180.0 22
200× 240.0 30

Alex

 

[woodspirits]

One thing to look out for is in what resolution and quality the images are saved. Some cameras have super dooper mega pixel imaging but then save the files in less than high quality formats. For this reason I continue to use my trusty old 4megapixel Canon Ixus because it saves in very large and super fine format and often out performs some of the newer "HD" cameras.

I spent a LOT of time reading up at http://www.dpreview.com/ before committing to buy, very glad I did.

yep what woz says, i have had one for a while great little camera. dont know what the current model is though, mine was probably out of date before it was in the bag!