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What’s the best bridge camera for birding? (2 Viewers)

Interesting variety of resposes to her request for a better birding camera than a SX60. My wife's songbird shots with an SX50 have been pretty good but somewhat lacking in resolution at times. Also no fading out of back ground is possible. She asks is there a better bridge camera with a very good viewfinder for shooting birds in flight?
 
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Hi Robert,

She asks is there a better bridge camera with a very good viewfinder for shooting birds in flight?

The Panasonic FZ1000 is good for shooting birds in flight.

The quality of the viewfinder in my opinion would depend on the resolution. If another camera is the baseline, you could look up the resolution of its viewfinder, then compare it to the target camera's.

For birds in flight, you might be more interested in update rate than in resolution. I'll admit that I didn't see data on that, but in practical use the FZ1000 does pretty well in my opinion.

Regards,

Henning
 
Interesting variety of resposes to her request for a better birding camera than a SX60. My wife's songbird shots with an SX50 have been pretty good but somewhat lacking in resolution at times. Also no fading out of back ground is possible. She asks is there a better bridge camera with a very good viewfinder for shooting birds in flight?

The top spec bridge-type camera is usually determined by majority consensus to be the Sony RX10IV right now - as the one most capable for birding INCLUDING bird-in-flight and fast action - it uses the same PDAF (phase-detect autofocus) system as DSLRs and high end mirrorless systems. The focus system is extremely capable in regards to tracking flight, and the viewfinder is very good. The body is very well built, weather-sealed, and has a very good 600mm optical reach, stabilized. It's pricey, though for what it is capable of and how it's built, many consider it very reasonable.

The Panasonic FZ1000 II would generally be considered the next most capable - it has less reach at 400mm vs 600mm, but is one of the only other 1" sensor bridge cameras with focusing that would be reasonably capable with birds in flight and action - it uses a specialized contrast-detect focusing system called DFD (depth from defocus) that's faster and better than most consumer cameras' standard CDAF focus systems. It's cheaper than the Sony, though the build is a little less robust, the reach is less, and no weather sealing. At almost 1/2 the price of the Sony, that could justify the lesser feature set for some.

Really any other bridge camera wouldn't be reliably capable of focusing continuously on a moving subject and tracking - so if birds-in-flight is important, those are your two best bets. The RX10IV is the pinnacle, but expensive and larger, and the FZ1000 a cheaper, slightly smaller alternative step down.
 
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