A new camera

I bought myself a new photo camera. The pictures you saw in my blog so far were made with a Fujifilm FinePix S5600. A great bridge camera, from 2005, with the good grip of a small SLR and a high quality 10x zoom lens, 5.1 MP resolution.

The other is my newly bought Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150. It's also a bridge camera, from 2011, with a 24x zoom lens and 12 MP resolution.

Both cameras are, in my opinion, among the best choices of the time in the bridge camera class, considering features, quality and value for money. This posting is a brief comparison of the two.

(Note: images are all scaled down to 1600x1200 pixels.)

Why a bridge camera?

The Fuji weighs around 480 g and the Panasonic 530 g. The weight is one of the reasons why I again went for a bridge camera and not a DSLR, which can weigh the double or more, depending on your model and lenses. The other is price and purpose. I take the camera on backpack holidays, on city tours, hiking, and the beach, where it can get stolen or damaged. I want to limit the damage in such a case, so I won't have to worry that much.

And why not a point-and-shoot camera? While they are more practical in terms of size and weight, and you can put them in your jacket pocket, they just don't make the kind of photos I like to take. And for quick snaps I can also use my smartphone.

Zoom range

The old camera, from minimum (38 mm) to maximum (380 mm) zoom:

And the new camera from the same position, from minimum (25 mm) to maximum (600 mm) zoom:

So now I got both a wider wide-angle and a stronger telephoto. All is optical zoom, of course. The detail I get with the new camera is amazing, thanks to both the better lens, the better image sensor and the digital stabilization. I can even read the small print on the car's number plate.

Portrait

Here's a half-zoomed shot, all-automatic, autofocused on an object in 5 meter distance. Both cameras do pretty well on this job.

 Macro

 And here's a full-zoomed macro shot from about 2 meter distance.

And then...

And then the new camera has a better LCD, features like HDR, face recognition, panorama assistance, better video recording, burst mode, and much more. Time will tell which of these are useful or useless to me.

Drawbacks

But I really must say I loved my old camera, and don't change from it easily. Not all new is better. A disadvantage that comes with the stronger superzooms is that the lense moves forward while zooming, which my old camera didn't do. Also the 25 mm wide-angle, as nice as it is, does show considerable distortion. And finally: the plastic casing. It feels solid and robust on my old camera, and sadly thin and cheap on my new. If I asked my hands, they'd vote for the old one.

Other candidates

Since mid-2012 there is a newer model on the market, the Lumix DMC-FZ200, with an even better lens, but I decided that the FZ150 is good enough for me. Other bridge cameras that made it to top places on my personal decision list are:

• The Canon PowerShot SX50HS, with its amazing 50x zoom
• The Fujifilm FinePix HS30, with its manual zoom as opposed to motor zoom
• The Fujifilm X-S1, with its superb feel (Haptik), but heavy (912 g)
• The Nikon CoolPix P510 with an also amazing 42x zoom