Nikon P600/Sony DSC-HX400 (1 Viewer)

Hi myself Chobiwala from kolkata, want to purchase a camera for birding photography. I have already a Nikon D3100 with 18-55,35,&70-300. Only for birding want to purchase Nikon P600 or Sony DSC-HX400. Which one is more better for birding photography ?

Hi Chobiwala and a warm welcome to you from the entire staff here at BirdForum.

I've moved your thread to the camera section where you should get more feedback. I've also subscribed you to this thread so you don't lose track of it

Here is a recent review of bridge cameras including the two you are interested in:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/best-superzoom-2014/best-superzoom-2014-A.HTM

Their recommendation is the Nikon P600. But note:

"he biggest limitation we found with the P600 was its full-resolution continuous shooting speed. Not so much its 7 frames/second continuous rate as the fact that it took 30 seconds to write a burst of images to a very fast memory card, and wouldn't let you do anything with it for that entire time. This was frankly pretty maddening."

I am in the market for a bridge camera. With the burst limitation I am not sure I would go with the Nikon. I use burst a lot when using my Olympus EM5 camera for bird photography. 30 seconds is an eternity in bird photography!

After scanning that article I think I'd have to go with the Fuji S1. It's performance was very close to the Nikon's and it swallows bursts a heck of a lot faster than the p600. My current camera takes around 30 sec to digest a full resolution burst, and it's super frustrating standing there with basically a dead camera in my hands while watching good shot opportunities escape. For birding that would be a huge issue for me and one of the biggest features I will be looking into for my next bridge camera will be how fast it can process bursts.

The P600 looks like a decent camera but that slow burst processing is a deal breaker for me.