Comparison of Nikon P510 to Canon SX40
I am in the market for a "mega zoom" bridge camera and am struggling to decide between the Nikon P510 and the Canon SX40.
Factors like size, gps, battery life, number of features etc are not deal clinchers for me (although I do like the look of the P510's easy panarama function)
I am interested to know whether the extra x6 zoom of the P510 makes a significant difference in the field. Does the additional zoom come at the cost of a drop in image quality or focusing capabilitiy?
I have read all the comparison reviews of the two cameras but they don't realy address these issues.
I have to make a decision before a trip to Norfolk in early May. If anybody has had hands on experience with both cameras I would be interested to hear their views.
In March, before the Nikon P510 was available, I purchased the Canon SX40 after comparing it to the Nikon P500. At the time, I was very concerned about the autofocus performance of the P500. Less-than-ideal autofocus would definitely be a problem for photographing birds.
Right out of the box, I was extremely pleased with the SX40. A high percentage of my shots were "keepers", even at the full digital zoom of 140x (a steady hand is required at that zoom level).
I heard that the Nikon P510 had an improved autofocus, so I decided to give it a try.
After a couple of weeks of using it, I'm frustrated. Even though it offers 16 megapixels (compared to the SX40's 12) and a higher optical zoom (42x vs 35x), the SX40's 140x digital zoom far exceeds what the P510 will do, unless I'm missing something somewhere.
The biggest problem, however, seems to be that the P510 just isn't very interested in birds. It seems to prefer to autofocus on branches or even blades of grass rather than putting a frame-centered bird into sharp focus. In one amusing circumstance, I had centered a Common Loon on the water and the P510 drew multiple focus rings around the loon but left it out of focus.
I've tried many of the various AF settings and shooting modes, but am achieving a very low percentage of really good shots.
I tried using the GPS function and found that the battery life was greatly diminished. I also use an Eye-Fi card to automatically transfer photos to the slate computer running my field software and the battery was down to about 25% after taking about 115 photos. Not a huge deal, since my field software is already GPS-enabled, but I thought I'd give it a try. Turned off the GPS feature after that experiment.
I had given the SX40 to my daughter and now plan to swap the P510 for another SX40 unless I can discover that I'm doing something terribly wrong with the P510.