Butterfly superzoom? (1 Viewer)

Hi folks

Sorry if this has been covered before - wasn't obvious to me from the first few pages of threads I looked at.

I have a Nikon CP 8400 which I'm still trying to learn to use for macro photos. Unfortunately, I've found that the max zoom at c. 80mm equivalent is +/- useless for butterflies. I've resorted to taking photos through my binos with often less than fantastic results. So I'm considering 2 options:

• Buy Nikon's 3 x extender (adding 2-300 g to the camera weight)

• Buy a new superzoom. I've my eyes on the FZ50 so far but keep hoping that a new one will be introduced which will sweep all before it (e.g. Canon H5?)

This is for a trip to Paraguay in November. My birding/entomological friends there swear by their superzooms (Kodak in both cases) because of the reduced weight compared to an SLR set up.

The aim is mainly to produce identifiable photos, but it's possible that some will make it to a website or publication devoted to the subject.

Thanks for your opinions

Fernley

The FZ50 is a cracking camera but has one or two limitations you should bear in mind.
It uses an electronic viewfinder , like most non DSLRs , which can sometimes jitter when in macro mode making focusing difficult.
Panasonic cameras have a reputation for being noisy at higher ISOs. The FZ50 is no exception.
All that having been said it IS an excellent camera and good value for money.

Woolyback said:

The FZ50 is a cracking camera but has one or two limitations you should bear in mind.
It uses an electronic viewfinder , like most non DSLRs , which can sometimes jitter when in macro mode making focusing difficult.
Panasonic cameras have a reputation for being noisy at higher ISOs. The FZ50 is no exception.
All that having been said it IS an excellent camera and good value for money.

Click to expand...

...So I bought a second hand FZ-50 from ebay [!!] in the end. I was very pleased with the results, especially when coupled with a Raynox clip-on macro lens.

Focussing could be a bit difficult with this combination, but given the skittish tendencies of the subjects I think I did as well as possible & comparable to using an SLR. I was using it in the [sub-]tropics - loads of light - which helped with the noise issue. So I'd recommend this combo to anyone else. Got especially good results in the "studio" taking macro photos of [for example] dragonfly specimens. A low cost way to macro photos of sufficient quality for scientific publications.

Alas mine is now doing good work in South America and I miss it. If anyone'd like to sell me another one cheap I'd be very interested...

Cheers

Fernley