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Canon sx50 or Nikon p610 (1 Viewer)

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Charltonfan

Well-known member
I'm looking to buy either the Canon sx50 or Nikon P610 specifically for bird photography on a budget. I've looked at loads of reviews and photos on line but still finding it hard to decide. I have been able to handle the Nikon in the shops but the Canon is only available second hand or refurbished so I've been unable to handle one. Both cameras have great features for bird photography but there are a couple of differences that make it hard for me to decide. I like the Nikon very much but the lack of Raw is what bothers me. I use lightroom 6 for editing Raw files from my G1x mk2 and think I would want to edit most pics I take with any new camera I get. The Nikon only shoots jpegs and I'm concerned that any editing could spoil image quality? Would the Canon give better results using Raw than the nikon despite having an older sensor? The EVF on the Canon I hear is not great either and wondered if anyone has experience of using it while wearing glasses
 
The Nikon has an additional 4 mp. I anticipate cropping a lot of photos so would the extra pixles off set any gain I might have with the Canon Raw files?
 
In the end I went for the Nikon P610 and now I've had a chance to try it out I'm impressed with the results I can get. The zoom is fully usable handheld even on 60x with the image staying sharp, so it works really well for bird photography. The EVF is good quality so even though I wear glasses I could get on birds quite easily as long as i didn't zoom in too much to begin with. The camera does need good light, preferably a sunny day, to get the best results. I tend to shoot in Aperture priority mode but the camera has a bird watching mode which works really well. The only down sides are no ability to shoot RAW files and the camera sensor is the same size as a point and shoot so don't expect SLR quality. Having said that I've tried post processing the Jpegs in Lightroom to squeeze out a bit more quality and I think the results are great all things considered. For bird photography on a budget I don't think you can go wrong with this camera. I'll see if I can post a couple of my recent photos
 
Charltonfan said:
In the end I went for the Nikon P610 and now I've had a chance to try it out I'm impressed with the results I can get. The zoom is fully usable handheld even on 60x with the image staying sharp, so it works really well for bird photography. The EVF is good quality so even though I wear glasses I could get on birds quite easily as long as i didn't zoom in too much to begin with. The camera does need good light, preferably a sunny day, to get the best results. I tend to shoot in Aperture priority mode but the camera has a bird watching mode which works really well. The only down sides are no ability to shoot RAW files and the camera sensor is the same size as a point and shoot so don't expect SLR quality. Having said that I've tried post processing the Jpegs in Lightroom to squeeze out a bit more quality and I think the results are great all things considered. For bird photography on a budget I don't think you can go wrong with this camera. I'll see if I can post a couple of my recent photos
Click to expand...

I changed my P610 for the 900 a while ago but as you say the 610 is a great camera,i did a bit of photoshop editing on some of mine which i converted to tiff first,never decided if it helped or not.
 
nikonmike said:
I changed my P610 for the 900 a while ago but as you say the 610 is a great camera,i did a bit of photoshop editing on some of mine which i converted to tiff first,never decided if it helped or not.
Click to expand...

I use Lightroom 6. I think I can edit the jpegs and make as many changes as I like without loss until I save and export the file. Then there is a slight loss of quality although I haven't really noticed it when viewing on my laptop screen . Even then the original jpeg remains in Lightroom and I can just hit reset and rework the file again if needed
 
160125_untitled_005-2.jpg Hand held shot at full 60x (1440mm equivalent) zoom. Some editing in lightroom 6 to improve contrast and sharpness
 
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