Once again consulting the all knowing oracle of knowledge that is SigForum.

Looking for a bridge or a slim zoom camera. I've got a Nikon D7100 DSLR that I love, but it's big and heavy. Looking for something smaller I can keep in the truck or throw in my daypack for a hike. Looking at something like the Nikon Coopix B500 for a bridge or Nikon Coolpix A900 for a slimline.

Probably prefer to stay with Nikon since that's what I've always had and understand their controls and logic. However, open to others if there's a compelling reason or advantage.

So what sayeth the forum?

Why a zoom camera? What specific aspect of having a zoom camera is appealing to you? What types of photos are you looking to capture?

Not much of a zoom* but my favorite pocket Camera is a Nikon coolpix water/weather proof one... have used an AW110 for a couple of years and just recently bought the AW130 for when the 110 goes out. These are good to down about 58ft under water and so are actually truly weather proof. At 16 megs a picture you can crop most photos a bit and still get a decent resolution.

*Optical zoom on the 130 is 5x which is pretty good but the camera starts out at a really good wide angle which is what I really needed for my work.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
Why a zoom camera? What specific aspect of having a zoom camera is appealing to you? What types of photos are you looking to capture?

Versatility. The ability of a wide angle for panoramic landscapes and telephoto for wildlife. It's Alaska and never know what I may see. Basically looking for something small and handy for when I don't have my DSLR with me.

I bought a Nikon D-3400 a few years back. yes a smaller DSLR but light weight and even set on AUTO, brilliant results.

Bigger than a pocket camera but tremendous results for the pound or so it weighs.

You might look at the Sony HX90v. I love mine and find myself carrying it more often than my D5300.

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-DS...a-568280404220&psc=1

I wear cargo pants and shorts a lot and the camera easily fits in a pocket. The 30x zoom is the equivalent of a 720mm lens and the stabilization mode works very well. The pop-up OLED viewfinder is really handy on those bright sunny days when the screen is so washed out that it becomes useless. Having a Zeiss lens is another big plus. There are too many features to mention, but it is extremely versatile. You should be able to find it cheaper somewhere other than Amazon.

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by 2000Z-71:

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:
Why a zoom camera? What specific aspect of having a zoom camera is appealing to you? What types of photos are you looking to capture?

Versatility. The ability of a wide angle for panoramic landscapes and telephoto for wildlife. It's Alaska and never know what I may see. Basically looking for something small and handy for when I don't have my DSLR with me.

If you like the DSLR idea but just want something smaller, you might look at one of the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera systems.

I have both Nikon full-frame DSLR stuff and Panasonic and Olympus (the two companies share the same system) Micro Four Thirds stuff.

A Micro Four Thirds (hereafter, M43) camera is basically a DSLR with a sensor slightly smaller than APS-C and no mirror between the lens and sensor. The camera bodies are much smaller than DSLR bodies because they don't need the space for the large mirror and viewfinder optics, and the lenses are typically half the length, half the diameter, and a quarter the weight (or less) than a comparable full-frame DSLR lens (this is a result both of the smaller sensor and the fact that the lens itself is much closer to the sensor, since there isn't a mirror).

Compared to a full-frame DSLR you lose a couple stops of low light performance, some resolution, and depth of field is a stop wider. There is a wide selection of excellent lenses. The crop factor is about 2x, so a 12-35 f/2.8 lens has the field of view of a 24-70 f/2.8 on a full-frame camera (and the DOF of a 24-70 f/4).

If I want utmost image quality, I reach for my D800 and a lens like the Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 - but with M43, I can fit a body, a flash, a 7-14 f/4, 12-35 f/2.8, 35-100 f/2.8, and a 45mm f/2.8 macro lens in less space for less weight.

With a mirrorless camera like this, you could put a lightweight superzoom on it for general purpose use and have a few more specialized lenses you could take if you wanted them for what you were doing that day.

Sony RX 100 or Sony RX 10. Several variants over the years.

A camera I got for the wife a few years back that also I think fits your parameters is a Panasonic DMC--ZS50 Lumix.
30x ( out to 25ish is really quite good) with a Leica lens & wi-Fi. It gets way more use than I thought it would by both of us.

I’m a Nikon guy as well (D500) but for a camera to throw into your pocket or backpack you can’t go wrong with the Olympus TG 5.

I’ve taken it snorkeling, backpacking and off-roading in Africa and can say that the pictures come dam close to those of my Nikon without the weight...

https://www.amazon.com/Olympus...a-524434491278&psc=1

The wife wanted the same for the same reasons and it had to be Nikon as well, she has a D80. I found a like new P510 in a pawn shop for about $125. She loves it, it performed well in Israel and she has it right now in Costa Rica with her son on a High School trip.

As a former Nikon shooter for 30+ years, I recently switched to Fujifilm mirrorless and don’t regret it one bit. Dramatic reduction in weight and superb quality. You could grab something like the E3 (or find a nice, used E2S) and compliment that with a few of their lighter zooms and you’d be set.

Tl;dr: Sensor size has an exponential impact on lens weight/size. For your purposes, you shouldn't go with anything larger than a micro four-thirds sensor.

For the zoom you need to reach out and get compelling (something more than just--hey, there's a bear on that hill in this picture) images of wildlife, no APS-C or Full Frame camera--mirrorless or otherwise, will be remotely compact.

70-200mm (in a full frame equivalent) is basically portrait distance.

Something in the 300mm range is useful for catching a compelling image of something within say, baseball throwing distance. I would say 300mm would be the bare minimum I would want for "animal pictures".

A lens with 300mm zoom length, even on an APS-C mirrorless body and with not a particularly fast/large aperture, will be bigger than the size and weight of a beer can, sticking out perpendicularly to the body of the camera. A Fuji X-T2 with the 55-200 would be representative of this, and I would not consider this a compact package that I would carry around day to day. I have this setup, and I use it very specifically for compressing backgrounds in travel photos.

On the opposite of the spectrum, something with a tiny sensor in the 1/2.3" range can give you ridiculous "reach" at the expense of image quality. For instance, the PowerShot SX70 can get you an equivalent of 1365mm (!) of zoom in a smaller package than the Fuji package above. You'll be stuck with risking blurry images in anything but bright daylight at the long end of the reach, and your image quality will be mediocre by today's standards--the glass won't be as sharp, the sensor sensitivity will be low--but, you'll be about to reach out and get close in to the animals.

A step up in sensor size would be something like a PowerShot G3X, with about a 600mm equivalent zoom on a 1" sensor in something that might fit in a coat pocket. This is worth looking at if you truly are looking for a bridge camera that can just be carried everywhere, left in the truck console, or carried on hikes.

But, if you don't mind a little more size and weight, I would step up to the best Micro Four Thirds camera I could afford, and buy something like the Olympus 12-200 F3.5-6.3. That gives you 400mm reach (equivalent) in something fairly compact (compared to an SLR), and will give you an entire platform to add lenses to. Lenses, by the way, hold their value fairly well and you can always upgrade the body periodically throughout the life of the lens.

I use a middle of the road Fuji when I am doing things and going places that would be risky to my high $$$ Nikon DSLR.
If I lose or damage the Fuji, I dont want to throw myself under a bus. Photo quality is less, but not really all that noticeably less.

If I were looking for a pocket style camera it would be this Canon, and I'm a Nikon guy.

https://www.adorama.com/icag7xm2.html