Looking for a new bridge camera, its a minefield.

[Subaru_WRC]

I'm looking to upgrade my current Lumix bridge camera to something a bit more upto date with better images, one that has good video and sound would be ideal. Its a minefield when your looking at camera reviews online, you'll get one review that raves about a certain camera then the next review about the same camera will be listing its various faults

I'm open to suggestions, upto now from my own research ive got it down to a Canon SX50 HS or possibly the newer SX60 HS if its a worthy upgrade, like i said i'm open to suggestions.

 

[Pablosammy]

Damn you, I went away looking to prove that bridge cameras are an inferior race, and I've come back thinking a Canon SX60 HS would be quite a tidy tool when out birding!

Wallet out...

 

[woof woof]

The Canon has a wide focal range but other than that feature aren't the market leaders Panasonic and Sony? Over at DPR (if their reviews hold any sway) in review they rate the Canon at 72% whereas the Panny (FZ1000 and 2000) and Sony (RX10) bridge cameras get scores of 82/80/80%. Might be worth a look unless the zoom range of the Canon outweighs the other pros and cons.

 

[Subaru_WRC]

I would have bought the Sony RX10 like a shot if it wasn't for a couple of slight niggles, it only zooms to 200mm so your basically stuck with that. The other thing is to do with the video, Sony for some reason are using an older type codec for the video (avchd) and it only has a micro HD port and they arn't great. I think the Sony RX10 has everything i want other than the niggles that i pointed out, for the kind of money that this camera costs it would have to be a perfect fit, i think those things would always be in the back of my mind. Great camera though.