scrubbedexpat141

Morning,

I can't be hunting through for the old thread I had about cameras, and this is a slightly different question anyway.

I want a camera. I don't really want to be arsed with a massive SLR now that I have seen the Nikon P510 'bridge' camera with a zoom longer than my arm and some other cool stuff on it.

I know some of you are experts and make money from this and take it seriously (Auto?) and others seem to have barrel loads of knowledge (Bahtat) about it all....my question is basically;

Should I buy SLR over the Bridge type camera (or vice versa) if I want to be able to point and click in different environments, but also generate the best quality picture, as well as being able to play with settings (but not in too much depth)?

Any help / suggestions would be useful, please also bear in mind I'm not going to spend any stupid money on this, the Nikon is 2,000 and that seems reasonable for what you get, but am open to suggestions.

Thanks

Scampneedsabiggerzoom

Millhouse

Changing the subject totally - I had to buy a new tyre at the weekend and thought about your misses' spare tyre.

I got mine from 'Upgrade Tyres' (used them before - at the end of Umm Sequem just opposite the MoE turn in). They gave excellent service, and were much cheaper than the others in the area (I paid 580Dh for a Yoko - vs. 700-800Dh for the white man in the other shops).

scrubbedexpat141

Sweet.

Still not done this. Found the issue is the production date on one pair of hers is 2007. Getting them sorted this weekend.

Fingers crossed, I'll be able to take a picture of them too.

shiva

same advice again, just buy the canon g12 if you still want more after 6 months or so flog it and upgrade. a **** off big lens is a tiny part of photography and means **** all if you don't know what your doing. a big lens will compress your depth of field in an image or save you walking closer that's about it.
if your talking about wanting to point and click dont even think about an slr it would be a total waste

oh and go here
http://www.dpreview.com/

Millhouse

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=25.1199956...4&z=17&l=0&m=b

I intend to keep trashing your camera thread as you have already had this question answered

Bahtatboy

Buy this: you won't regret it:



Fuji X-100.
Point n shoot if you want, or full-on manual when you need.
Looks sooo classy.
Fujinon lenses are second to none.
Get from John Lewis in UK at £695 (a full AED1k cheaper than here).

Or if you absolutely must have a zoom, then the G12.

scrubbedexpat141

But the g12 has only 5x zoom, and gets a lot of points in reviews because of the way it looks - that doesn't really mean a lot to me or matter.

I take on board it's other plus points though.

I'm after something that has a lot of toys on it that I can learn and play with and use once mastered, not just a complete point and shoot....which is why I liked the Nikon P510 that I mentioned.

Anyone got any ideas on those bridge cameras between proper compact and full SLR?

BB - That Fuji looks great but I'm not spending 700 quid. 400 ish max I think is reasonable... thank you though.

Millhouse

I have a sony NEX-5 - that is a true half way between the two. I'm happy with it. For me, the key was a fast shutter, fast auto focus and reasonable high ISO performance to capture mini jumping in the pool etc. You can also change its lens (not that I ever will). It's basically a flashy point and shoot but offering better picture than a point and shoot, and a smaller (simpler) form than an SLR.

In terms of picture quality - given all I do is print 6x4 (or sometimes 8x6) and blue tack them to the wall, it's great.

shiva

ffs mate the questions been answered.
forget mega pixels, its marketing bullshite and means **** all
forget zoom unless you buy an slr and dedicated expensive zoom or fixed length lens it means **** all. on a bridge or point and shoot all that happens at full zoom is you lose most of your image quality. for 99% of the pics you will take walk ****ing closer and don't lose image quality. there is a reason pros who want a longer focal length ("big zoom") option either but a dedicated 500mm, 1000mm or more lens (for thousands) and not a zoom.
if you want to learn buy a g12, it will point and shoot brilliantly and let you do as much or as little manually as you want.
if you're worried about looks buy a fancy looking point and shoot or a leica, if you want to take good pics see your previous thread, if you don't know what you want or need buy a point and shoot and use it regularly if you cant or don't want to then buy what the **** you want its your money.

remember most of the worlds most famous images were recorded on what we would now consider to be sub standard cameras with no zoom at all.

final image quality and impact is about 10% the camera, the rest is the person using it

scrubbedexpat141

Thanks for that.

I don't understand enough about the technical details to know where value is added. I've got a G12 review loaded to read now.

My point with the P510 is that is states it has a 24mm to 1000mm equivalent ?

shiva

yes and at 1000 mm the image quality will be ****ing awful

just google nikor 500 mm , 1000mm and 1000mm mirror. you'll see why proper long focal length lenses are huge and expensive.

scrubbedexpat141

OK will do.

Thanks for your help mate.

Lots more reading to do.

Waiting for a pal to come back to me as well, he's out here as a camera bloke so should be useful.

Bahtatboy

Not seen the specs, but that's got to be part optical zoom and part digital zoom. Digital zoom is exactly the same as you can do in Photoshop or most other editing software--very little point in having it in-camera.

A fixed lens (ie non-zoom) will always give better quality, and--price-for-price--is going to be faster (ie have a wider maximum aperture), meaning that you'll get better low-light shots (and be able to use a faster shutter speed to freeze action), and will be able to have a shallower depth of field (which is often important for portrait shots).

But totally agree with Autonomy: virtually any 400-quid camera is capable of excellent results. Much the same as a good oven is capable of excellent results--but if you're a shite cook, the food's still going to be shite.

When I researched about a year or so ago, I considered the G12 to be top of the pile, but there may be others which match it now.

Bahtatboy

Have you looked at the Olympus Pen range? When I did before I was tempted, but the cheaper ones didn't have built-in flash and were still expensive, but things may have changed since then. Not cheap, but high quality, versatile and beautifully designed.

scrubbedexpat141

Cheers BB.

Having a look now at a suggestions.

You're right what you say about a 400 quid camera is going to be good, as long as you know what you're doing. Good point.

I'm going to carry on with research and get myself a shortlist.