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A Bridge Camera ~ "don't waste your money"! (1 Viewer)

I have come from a 7D with a Canon 300mm f2.8 IS lens > 7D with Canon 400/5.6 lens > and now to the SX40. For me there is more to life than lugging around heavy DSLR stuff. I still have two DSLR's and three or four lenses but I may even get rid of those sometime and buy an additional good quality compact for the shorter focal lengths.
Attached is a few shots from the SX40 that I have only had for a few days.
Not up to DSLR standards but not bad for the money. I am amazed by the IQ from such a small sensor. All hand held at 840mm and shot at ISO 400

Just excellent as always with you Roy! Amazing quality, it's up with (skilled) dslr standards when viewed on my phone!
 
Here is an action shot taken yesterday with the SX40 at ISO 800. How Canon manage to put 12mp on a sensor less than 1/4" long and get this noise performance at ISO 800 is beyond me.
 

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Here is an action shot taken yesterday with the SX40 at ISO 800. How Canon manage to put 12mp on a sensor less than 1/4" long and get this noise performance at ISO 800 is beyond me.

Wow! Makes lugging around a dslr kit even harder to motivate.
 
Hi

Have been out practicing with my new ( used ) Fuji HS10 bridge camera. It does take alot of tweaking and trying different settings and is much more difficult than using a DSLR ( in my opinion ) Colours can be washed out so I need to continue experimenting with the settings. However am finding it alot of fun trying. I am really happy with the camera. I am along way from getting the type of pictures I want but feel I can still improve. Here are a few I have taken not great but hint at possible future potential. A couple were at iso 400. Bye
 

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Hi. Here are a few more. I realised with the previous pictures when I opened them the feather detail on the head shot isn't clear where as on my computer it's very clear that's why I added that picture. Maybe when I downsize the pictures for sending the sharpness suffers. Anyway bye!
 

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Maybe when I downsize the pictures for sending the sharpness suffers. Anyway bye!

I believe that is commonly seen unless you sharpen a little after downsizing or the downsizing program is automatically sharpening a little

Niels
 
Hi

Have been out practicing with my new ( used ) Fuji HS10 bridge camera. It does take alot of tweaking and trying different settings and is much more difficult than using a DSLR ( in my opinion ) Colours can be washed out so I need to continue experimenting with the settings.

I find that slightly underexposing can be helpful in avoiding washed out colours.
 
Hi

Colours can be washed out so I need to continue experimenting with the settings.
On my SX40 I have reduced the in-camera saturation as it seemed over saturated, besides I would sooner do it myself in post rather than leaving it to the Camera to decide (same goes with sharpening).
 
Here is a couple more I took recently on the SX40, some super detail for such a small sensor. The Swallow shot is at ISO 800, from all the comparison reviews I have seen the SX40 comes out near the top of the pile for high ISO noise levels in this category of Cameras which is one of the main reason why I bought it.
 

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I got out and took some more shots today, I think these turned out pretty well.

These burnet moths fascinated me as there were so many of them, each vibrant with red and black colours. The photo of the damselfly was on aperture priority, macro focus. It was also nice to see a couple of great crested grebes about on the lake. There were also a couple of cormorants basking in the sun. Finally, the four swallows were being fed by a parent, who was coming and going regularly. This shot was taken at ISO 100, F8.0, 1/250sec.
 

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interesting debate...but as others have said it all depends what you want.

One thing that has occurred to me now having just had a go on the other halfs brand new Panasonic TZ27 compact with a 20x zoom is that in some ways it appears better than my Panasonic FZ37 bridge camera ie the shutter lag seems less, obviously it has more zoom and the quality seems excellent. If true compacts are getting that good, I'm starting to wonder whether its worth carrying round a bridge camera. Or are the latest Panasonic bridge cameras a big step up from mine?
 
interesting debate...but as others have said it all depends what you want.

One thing that has occurred to me now having just had a go on the other halfs brand new Panasonic TZ27 compact with a 20x zoom is that in some ways it appears better than my Panasonic FZ37 bridge camera ie the shutter lag seems less, obviously it has more zoom and the quality seems excellent. If true compacts are getting that good, I'm starting to wonder whether its worth carrying round a bridge camera. Or are the latest Panasonic bridge cameras a big step up from mine?

I was considering getting the Olympus SZ31-MR with its 24x zoom, but I went for the SX40 due to its 35x zoom, big battery life, top-notch image stabilisation, fold-out tiltable screen, viewfinder and top picture quality even at max zoom.

I wanted a camera that would improve my knowledge of getting good shots and would be more different from my previous camera (Panasonic Lumix TZ7)

Now if only the little owls would come back so I would be able to compare the shot with a picture taken from my TZ7 (the one used as my avatar)
 
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interesting debate...but as others have said it all depends what you want.

One thing that has occurred to me now having just had a go on the other halfs brand new Panasonic TZ27 compact with a 20x zoom is that in some ways it appears better than my Panasonic FZ37 bridge camera ie the shutter lag seems less, obviously it has more zoom and the quality seems excellent. If true compacts are getting that good, I'm starting to wonder whether its worth carrying round a bridge camera. Or are the latest Panasonic bridge cameras a big step up from mine?

I have got a Fuji 660EXR which has a 15x zoom, some of the time it can do the job but is much more fiddly to use than a bridge camera.
 
What a great thread. Lots of sensible advice and beautiful images. I had not considered a bridge camera in my love hate relationship with DSLRs and zoom lenses. A review in this month's Bird Watching and this thread have opened up new possibilities. I want usable images as a basis for my wood carvings but found the pursuit of getting the images with a DSLR full time in itself. I haven't the time to carve and pursue that once in a life-time National Geographic image, and a bridge seems the ideal compromise, which will keep me focused on why I want to take photos in the first place - and at an 1/4 of the price. Thanks to all for your insights
 
Tried really pushing the SX40 today by shooting with the so called 'Digital tele-converters'. This shot was taken at full zoom (840mm) with the built-in 1.5x tc thus giving 1260mm. Obviously not up to DSLR standards but not too bad considering IMHO. The built-in converters (1.5x and 2x) are obviously digital rather than optical but work a lot better than if you just shoot with the digital zoom at 1260mm or 1680mm, not sure why - seems like it is in-camera cropping with some extra processing + better IS. Hit rate was low so next time I am going to try it on a tripod.
 

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That's a fantastic shot of the goldfinch Roy, the colour and detail is really great. I shall have to find this in-built teleconverter, as I have not encountered it yet. It may come in handy when I go to Bempton Cliffs in the next week or two, as the puffins are usually quite far away.
 
That's a fantastic shot of the goldfinch Roy, the colour and detail is really great. I shall have to find this in-built teleconverter, as I have not encountered it yet. It may come in handy when I go to Bempton Cliffs in the next week or two, as the puffins are usually quite far away.

Ben here is a screenshot of the PDF file of the SX40. I have been following all the threads on this camera and especially Roy's contributions and seriously tempted to get one soon, hence the download of the PDF so I can familiarise myself with it before I take the plunge ;)

Regards

John
 

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