Bridge Camera for Bird Photography

[Tringa]

Bryan, I think your problem is that as you have some v good DSLR gear so anything else is going to look a bit down market, though I'm guessing you have already come to this conclusion.

It is also likely that you are at the position of deciding what you are willing to compromise and I think it will be a difficult one.

I have recently moved from a Panasonic FZ28 to a Pentax K5. The versatility of the FZ28 was great and in very many situations it can produce excellent images, but having used a DSLR for a few months, I would not want to move back, but I can understand the convenience of a smaller camera could, at times, be very useful.

Hope you get what you want.

Dave

[stevecurtis]

I agree with Nightshade I have a Panasonic FZ38,im happy enough with the image quality ,I have a Olympus 1.7 tele converter fitted to it, its lightweight I can carry it all the time which I find a big advantage for my own record shots ,video is very good ,ouite often in bad weather I can get a bit of video when I can’t get a picture, and to be honest there is no way I can afford or justify the same picture taking capability’s in DSLR anyway, I’m no expert but you can look at my pictures on flickr at Bath nats or stevecurtis1 may help.

All the best Steve

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by KentYeti

It HAS to fit in a fairly large coat pocket
Fast and accurate focus
Quality image
Long Zoom
Image Stabilisation
OK ISO performance
Possible RAW as well, for when I mess up the exposure! :eek

I'm not asking for much! ....

Might be worth waiting for the release of the Finepix X-S1:-
Fujifilm X-S1 | PhotographyBLOG
According to the press release, it seems to have everything on your wants list!
£699 for a Bridge camera seems expensive, but if it really delivers the goods in a stand-alone unit, then it might well be worth considering as an alternative to a bag full of DSLR kit.

Regards,
Mike.

[DRB]

i have been following a discussion on another forum about the canon xs40 and the pics that have been put up are very impressive

[Jersali]

Hi,
my wife has an FZ18 and added a teleconverter 1.7 to boost the 18x
My brother has the FZ45 which is 24x
Both produce fantastic bird pics (and good allrounders) but will not compare to a DSLR of course.
In any event will be interested to know what you go for.
Recently dropped my Olympus 590UZ (have several pics in the Gallery with it), it's a bit poorly so I will be replacing that at some point
Good luck
Al

[KentYeti]

Originally Posted by Lancashire Lad

Might be worth waiting for the release of the Finepix X-S1:-
Fujifilm X-S1 | PhotographyBLOG
According to the press release, it seems to have everything on your wants list!
£699 for a Bridge camera seems expensive, but if it really delivers the goods in a stand-alone unit, then it might well be worth considering as an alternative to a bag full of DSLR kit.

Regards,
Mike.

Pricey, but looks like it could be re-defining standards for bridge cameras. Maybe worth waiting for.

But I'll also research the Canon xs40 mentioned.

Tringa has hit the nail on the head though. My Nikon D7000 and 300mm f4 lens is producing some wonderful images.

Take a look at this Short Eared Owl shot on my Sheppey Short Eared Owl blog at Kent Yeti's Short Eared Owls on Sheppey Photos The shot near the bottom of the page, (at present). It follows after the first shot of 19th November, (which is just an average SOE in flight shot).

I know I will never get that quality with a Bridge Camera, (the whole bird in sharp focus, everything else totally blurred), but whether I can achieve the quality of the average quality shots that make up some of the other photos on that page? (Others are Ok and some will be removed as sub standard as I am slowly replacing them with better shots).

I would hope that spending nearly £700 on a Bridge Camera would mean I can get close to what I see as average quality. Thereby making any Bridge Camera shots of unusual/rare birds that I encounter in my walks suitable for my blogs and Life List. Which is what I am aiming at.

All these decisions to make! LOL.

But the posts on this thread are extremely helpful.

Cheers,

Bryan

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by KentYeti

Pricey, but looks like it could be re-defining standards for bridge cameras. Maybe worth waiting for....

Fuji Japan today issued some sample Jpeg photos taken with an X-S1.
The quality of these shots looks very impressive indeed:-
(It's a Japanese language site, but the photos and basic exposure info are there to be seen).
FUJIFILM X-S1 : ?????? | ??????

Regards,
Mike.

[Za]

Hi Bryan, I just got a Canon SX40 from eBay, they are available for £319 there, which is a lot cheaper than I have seen elsewhere, only just got it yesterday so havent had much chance to try it so far.
The ones on eBay for that price are American, so not sure if the guarantee will be valid here (although it doesnt say that they are American when you buy)
I took this with it just now


I will need to spend a bit of time getting used to it, but I was relatively happy with this for a first attempt.
Seems like a decent camera and I have never had any problems with my 2 previous Canon bridge cameras.
Za

[KentYeti]

Thanks Za.

I've thought this through and for the present am going to use my old Nikon D80 with the Nikon 70-300mm lens I initially got for bird photography. It wasn't really up to it, and got replaced by a Nikon 300mm f4 which is outstanding on my D7000. If I stick mainly to perching shots with the D80 + 70-300mm combination when fast focus isn't needed I think I may get some OK stuff.

I've just come back from ten days in Snowdonia. Mainly walking, and lugging the D80 + the zoom around wasn't too much of a struggle. What was a struggle was taking any photos in the appalling weather. Never saw the sun once and saw more rain in those ten days than we had in Kent in the whole of 2011. Got a couple of distant shot of the local pair of Ravens, but nothing else. Hopefully I'll get better weather next time.

Thanks again,

Bryan