Beginner Beginner here looking for some advice, moving from bridge camera to DLSR

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SMC4761

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stewart
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Hi folks and thanks for letting me join

I am fairly new to photography and at present I am using a Canon SX50 bridge camera. I mainly use this for taking photographs of birds. It has a huge 50 x optical zoom for getting that little bit closer to the subject, without disturbing the bird. On full optical zoom this goes to 1200mm. On the camera itself on the lens it says 4.3--215mm ???

Pictures are OK but looking to take my photographs to next level

Looking to buy probably another Canon camera which has a 18/55mm lens. For telephoto pictures would a 70/300 mm lens be similar to the Canon SX50 on full 50x optical zoom

Any advice greatly appreciated
 
The focal length is 4.3-215mm as you said this is the actual focal length of the lens, the equivalent range to a 35mm/full frame DSLR is 24-1200mm.

Most but not all DSLRs come in two different sensor sizes, asp-c which is the smaller sensor and the full frame sensor which is equivalent to 35mm film.
I believe the camera you are looking at will have an asp-c sensor because you have said it comes with a 18-55mm lens, because the sensor is smaller you have to add a crop factor to the lens size, on Canon this is 1.6 (1.5 on Nikon) this means the 18-55mm has a field of view the same as 29-88mm and the 70-300mm will have the same field of view as a 112-480mm.
So your Canon SX50 has a 35mm/Full frame equivalent of 24-1200mm and the 70-300mm on the camera you intend to buy will have a range of 112-480mm, so it will only have just over a third of the reach at the long end.
First understand that superzoom/bridge cameras generally have a longer focal length than almost all DSLR lenses, but their optical quality will be far less than the DSLR equivalents, quality lenses are not cheap to manufacture, Canons 100-400mm lens retails for about £2000, their 600mm prime is over £10,000.
The cheapest decent lens with any substantial range is the Sigma 150-600mm C which is about £800 new which will achieve 240-960mm on the Canon asp-c, still short of the SX50s 1200mm.
Full frame cameras are exactly as they are, so 70-300mm is 70-300mm.
Many new photographers have a headache getting their head around the crop factor, there are plenty of videos on YouTube explaining it.
The two main sensors sizes are down to historical and financial reasons, both are good but for different reasons.
Hope I haven’t made your head spin.
 
Welcome to TP, Stewart.

Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_factor and the internal links below that article for an explanation of the phenomenon Sean's touched on.

A 70-300 mm lens on a crop body (most DSLRs are crop bodies with a crop factor of about 1.5 - 1.6, although there are also 2x crops [four thirds system]) will give the same sort of view as your bridge camera at a bit under 1/2 its maximum zoom but will almost certainly be a "better" picture. If possible, compare files from your current camera with those of the same scene from a DSLR/70-300 combination.
 
Apologies for the delay in replying. Thank you both for your advice, much appreciated

Think I need to head over to Youtube for further info and do a lot more research online
 
Spend as much as you can afford on lenses , if its primarily birds I'd either go for one of the sigma lenses or the 400 f/5.6
300mm won't be enough
 
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