wonderview
Well-known member
I'm looking to upgrade slightly. I'm hopefully looking for some input from people who have experience with the type of cameras I'm about to mention. Here's my criteria.
Type of camera: Bridge with large zoom. Mostly I like bird and nature photography , so large zoom is a factor. It's a hobby I do in what little free time I have , so it's a "Quickly pick the camera up and go outdoors " situation. I don't want to have to deal with lugging a series of lenses around, and changing them to get the shot I want. And I don't try to get award winning photos, I just try to gratify myself with pretty good ones! lol. I never plan on producing large prints. 99% of my photos will just be posted online, or maybe to make small prints that would go in a photo album, so as of now a DSLR is out of the running.
Budget: Somewhere in the $500 Canadian dollar range.
Performance: For instance, the ability to zoom in fast on a small bird, fast focus, both AF and MF.
Low light ability: Often I find myself trying to take photos, especially of birds, in the waning daylight of the late afternoon/early evening, or into heavy undergrowth that reduces lighting amd makes deep shadows.
Has to have a viewfinder.
Decent burst rates, especially at maximum resolution.
Top contenders: Right now, the Fujifilm HS50EXR and the Canon SX50HS.
The manual zoom, manual focus and (from what I've heard), and good electronic viewfinder, and long battery life on the Fuji has me interested, especially for birding. However, in every site I see comments about this camera, someone is always complaining about image quality problems. On the other hand, I've seen some brilliant images posted here and there taken with this camera. Result: Confusion. Is it just camera bashing from people who are loyal to other brands, with no foundation in fact? Or is it fact?
Unfortunately, no one seems to carry this particular camera in their stores around here, so I've never managed to see or handle one in person.
I'm not so much interested in video making, that's just a side consideration, something I only do rarely anyway, so video quality is not a big issue here. If it's just pretty good, that's good enough. Good photos from whatever camera I'm looking into is the issue!
The SX50HS gets a lot of good press, and there's no question it produces great images. But I see some complaints about it's viewfinder being below standard and hard to use in some cases.
Also, the motorized zoom makes me wonder how good it would be to track and zoom in and out quickly on small fast birds moving through branches of trees or whatever. Does it focus quickly in these situations?
Of course there are other similar cameras from Panasonic, Sony, Nikon, etc etc that are close contenders as well. Anyone with any input, and especially first hand experience with any of these cameras, please feel free to comment, I'd find it very helpful. Thanks |=)|
Type of camera: Bridge with large zoom. Mostly I like bird and nature photography , so large zoom is a factor. It's a hobby I do in what little free time I have , so it's a "Quickly pick the camera up and go outdoors " situation. I don't want to have to deal with lugging a series of lenses around, and changing them to get the shot I want. And I don't try to get award winning photos, I just try to gratify myself with pretty good ones! lol. I never plan on producing large prints. 99% of my photos will just be posted online, or maybe to make small prints that would go in a photo album, so as of now a DSLR is out of the running.
Budget: Somewhere in the $500 Canadian dollar range.
Performance: For instance, the ability to zoom in fast on a small bird, fast focus, both AF and MF.
Low light ability: Often I find myself trying to take photos, especially of birds, in the waning daylight of the late afternoon/early evening, or into heavy undergrowth that reduces lighting amd makes deep shadows.
Has to have a viewfinder.
Decent burst rates, especially at maximum resolution.
Top contenders: Right now, the Fujifilm HS50EXR and the Canon SX50HS.
The manual zoom, manual focus and (from what I've heard), and good electronic viewfinder, and long battery life on the Fuji has me interested, especially for birding. However, in every site I see comments about this camera, someone is always complaining about image quality problems. On the other hand, I've seen some brilliant images posted here and there taken with this camera. Result: Confusion. Is it just camera bashing from people who are loyal to other brands, with no foundation in fact? Or is it fact?
Unfortunately, no one seems to carry this particular camera in their stores around here, so I've never managed to see or handle one in person.
I'm not so much interested in video making, that's just a side consideration, something I only do rarely anyway, so video quality is not a big issue here. If it's just pretty good, that's good enough. Good photos from whatever camera I'm looking into is the issue!
The SX50HS gets a lot of good press, and there's no question it produces great images. But I see some complaints about it's viewfinder being below standard and hard to use in some cases.
Also, the motorized zoom makes me wonder how good it would be to track and zoom in and out quickly on small fast birds moving through branches of trees or whatever. Does it focus quickly in these situations?
Of course there are other similar cameras from Panasonic, Sony, Nikon, etc etc that are close contenders as well. Anyone with any input, and especially first hand experience with any of these cameras, please feel free to comment, I'd find it very helpful. Thanks |=)|
