Beginner Stressing about which camera is best for my wants and budget

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Serena
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I've been into photography since my stepdad bought me a basic point and shoot for my 12th birthday in 2010. It was a Kodak Easyshare. and then for my 14th birthday I was upgraded to a Nikon Coolpix L120 bridge camera, it was all we could afford. I've never really had a "proper" camera before, despite being very interested since a young age. I did own a Sony A200 DSLR for a couple months, recently, that I bought for £80 and then had to sell again for £60 for food when money got tight. Now I just use my iPod (yeah, not even an iPhone, an iPod) and my diana mini, which is a 35mm film "toy camera" by Lomography. We've never had much money, but now I think we're finally in a position where I can save up for a decent camera. It'll take a while but I'm determined.

I'm looking at a budget of around £300-£400.. possibly up to £500 for the right camera but it'll be a stretch. I know I can get an entry-level DSLR for that price, but I did LOVE the zoom of my old bridge camera and actually used it all the time so am looking at bridge cameras again, specifically the Panasonic Lumix FZ82.

I'd want it for general outdoors photography..like landscapes, nature and wildlife. On many occasions I've been out and about and seen something awesome to photograph but it's been too far away and I haven't had a good enough camera. Aswell as the landscapes/nature/wildlife/the general world around me, I also have a lot of small pets (hamsters etc) and my 1 year old that I'd love to take nice pictures of, I run a pet account on Instagram, and one main problem on my Sony A200 was that the auto-focus was too rubbish and if my daughter was moving around a little bit the camera would just completely refuse to take a photo. I'd try to manually focus but my eyes aren't great so I'd think I'd gotten a perfect shot but then when I'd got everything onto the computer it was actually blurry.

So what sounds like the best camera for what I want, and my budget? It'll take long enough for me to save for the camera, so another reason I don't really want a DSLR is because I doubt I'll ever be willing to save up even more for lenses and stuff, and I have back problems from my daughters birth so it's very hard for me to lug things around all day. I don't want to be missing photo opportunities because my camera's too big and heavy and I wasn't feeling well enough to lug it around that day.

Any sort of advice appreciated. Oh, and I would also like it to shoot RAW as I want to get into more editing too. I don't really care about other features such as touchscreen or wifi or anything fancy like that. Just high enough quality pictures, preferably a high zoom, quick auto-focus for little, quick moving hamsters. The ability to do shallow depth of field would be nice, but I'm happy to learn how to blur the background with lightroom/photoshop or something if I have to.
 
Oh-Kay... Well, I will start by saying entry level DSLR and I'll also say Nikon D3100/3200/D3300.. A-N-D second hand..

The Nikon D3X00 series are about the smallest and lightest DSLR out there.... eets dem lenziz that start makin'em a bit evy!!

B-U-T... you want to knock your snapping up a cog, I doubt that you will feel you have done if you dont go interchangeable lens camera, and do dee DSLR 'thing', and these cameras do it very well, and very cheaply.

You can now get a D3100+Kit 18-55 lens 2nd hand for around £100... how cheap do you want to go?

I have had a D3200 from new and bought a couple of D3100's 2nd hand; one for daughter when she started GCSE photo at school, and another, later for my O/H when she felt left out!

Far from a newby to photography, though was to digital SLR's when I got it, I have had no compunction to do the 'Must-Upgrade' to something newer or fancier.. and in fact, having chosen the D3200 over the D3100 when I bought new, and having used Daughter and O/H's D3100's I probably wouldn't have missed much if any of the 'features' on the newer camera, and I very much doubt I would miss or rue any of them on the even newer D3300 or D3400's that dont even boast more pixels on thier sensor.

The thing is a very very good all-round camera, with more than enough point-and-press newby freindliness including an 'in camera shooting guide' (which is a BIT McDonalds would you like fries with-that, Microsoft 'Help' have you checked the fuse sort of thing, thats takes rather more faff to find anything useful in, and I dont fiud 'useful' at all, TBH but it has it!) Yet.. all the manual over-rides I could shoot the thing like my old meter-less Zenit film camera if I wanted. Basically everything is there.

Weight and bulk? I have to say that when I got it, I evicted a pair of my old winder equipped Olympus OM film SLR's from the camera-bag to make space for it, and W-A-S rather taken a-back that it filled the space they had occupied.. Hmm the miricle of miniaturisation... not!

It's NOT particularly heavy, though, certainly not with the 'kit' 18-55 lens on it. As said, most of the weight is in the lenses; the Nik-Kit 18-55 and 55-300 both remarkeably light compared to others in their zoom-range.

One of the reasons for the 2nd hand D3100 for the O/H was actually that after a couple of years looking at very wobbly out-of-focus photos she took with a bridge camera... she'd discovered that even with her little ocre hands, my D3200 was easier and more stable to hold....

A number associated reasons for this; first the larger body was easier to get a grip on; next, the SLR peep-hole view, rather than the back-screen encouraged 'propper' hand-holding technique; and a more restrictive 18-55 zoom range, and manual zoom, discouraged pressing the zoom button all the way to the long end and trying to shoot, hand-held, at the mega 1000mm+ equivilent end.. where small movement gets magnified a lot, a-n-d she had a heck of a lot of lens poking out the body she was trying to hold at arms length to see the preview screen on the back.

Its a different way of working with an SLR, and they do can help instill a lot of old fashioned 'good practice' which will make far more difference than the gadgets and gee-gaws of electrickery vaunted on the box.

I am not at all familiar with the Cannon entry level equivilents. Other than they do seem bigger, and seem a lot more button orientated and less intuative to use. But otherwise, much of a muchness between them, and some preffer the handling of them.... you should get hands on to decide for yourself; and again; plenty around 2nd hand for not a lot of money, IF you can get past the probably only 'idea' that they'll be too big and too heavy.....

You want to try big and heavy? Try a Bronica MF film camera, or a Zenit 35mm!!! DAT heavy! And a side topic, if you like that Danica film camera, I shall return to... I LIKE film!

You mention trouble focusing on your baby-daughter... Yup, kids be quick!! And I will hazard a gues you were inside with lower light levels and probably poorer contrast, and likely using some 'zoom'....

If you go interchangeable lens DSLR, you can get some incredibly fast lenses for them. My daughter was bowled over by the AF-Primes for the Nikon, the AF-S 35 for Crop-Cameras, and the AF-S 50mm, both F1.8 lenses ISTR.

The Nikon 18-55 Kit lens is marked f3.5/5.6. The O/H's old bridge camer, is about the same. Thing to note is that the lenses have two f-numbers; one is for the wide end of the zoom, one for the tele-end of the zoom. The F-Number is mathmatically a ratio of the lens' focal length divided by the diameter of 'iris' inside the lens light pases through. Bigger the hole, lower the f-no... faster the lens... BUT for the same diameter hole.. longer the lens, the higher the f-number will be. This is why the f-number changes when you zoom. The hold size doesn't change, but the ratio of lens length to hold diameter does. Which is all a bit scientific... but...

Thing is that low f-numbers let more light in the camera. This is often encouraged to get shallow focus effects, and 'bokah' in the photo, and makes very little real difference most of the time, when you are probably shooting at smaller apertures any-way.... BUT, the quoted f-number is the lowest that the lens can have, and on a zoom, only at the wide end.

Biggest boon of the daughters 'fast' primes, then is not that the lenses can let her shoot at higher shutter speeds and or lower ISO in dimmer light... BUT that they let more lens in the camera regardless!

Lenses tend to set the maximum aperture they have when composing and focusing; they only get stopped down to the f-number setting you or the electrickery pick, when you press the shutter button to take a photo.

So the faster lens, means a brighter image either on the back-screen or through the view-finder.... this can be a big boon... BUT that is also when the electrickery is trying to deturmine what in the image it can put a red-dot on to make focus.

So there's lots of reasons that you will more likely get better, faster focus, even in lower light with a DSLR....

But better still... you can turn the damn AF 'off'!!

Bit luddite of me to suggest, but of all the automation in a modern digital camera, and the lore that says "Go-Manual" so many only go manual on the dial that is nicely marked 'Manual' usually for the exposure metering to manually set shutter-speeds and apertures.... ironically, automatic exposure control has been around most of my life-time, its probably the most accurate and reliable bit of automation in the camera... Aut-Focus.. well, they spent over a decade trying to make an AF system before it went to market.. and it STILL is probably the least reliable bit of automation in the thing! Yet so few ever even think to 'Go-Manual FOCUS'.. its how we HAD to do it for umpety decades, and you know what? If you know a bit about it, its actually not that hard! And NOT letting the camera try do it, and wasting time and battery 'hunting' for a focus lock, its often actually both quicker AND easier not to bother trying to use AF!

As said, inside, the problem is often low-light and low contrast; the cameras electrickery struggles to work out what its looking at... you dont. and being able to turn off the AF can save a heck of a lot of frustration trying to get the camera to do something its not so smart at from the start, at the margins where its pushed to its limit.

You cant do this with higher end bridge cameras and such, you can with interchangeable lens cameras, and DSLR's tend to be the cheaper and easier to get to grips with of them... they give you that option; and Nikon/Canon entry level DSLR's are the defacto start point here, where know-how and accessories and alternative lenses, noew or used are most common, most available, and most affordeable.. hence biggest bang for your buck....and will let you make that leap from a happy-snapper to enthusiast camera, and do the learning, and make it most affordable and most easy.

Said I'd mention Film cameras Lol!

Size and weight... I think my old Zenit probably weighs as much as everything in my camera bag on its own! Made of metal, in russia, like an eash German shot-putter... 'sturdy' is probably a reasonable description! Not so bulky.. but definitely heavy!

When new they were often sold with a machine-gun double handed grip and long lens for bird-spotting; they called it a 'sniper-grip'... as much as anything because this was how they gave the things to Russian conscrips to go crawl up to american army bases and see what they were up to during the cold war! They didn't give them a gun.... if they got into trouble, I think they were expected to use the camera as a med-evil mace! Dang things heavy enough to do it too! And stufy enough to take a phot after! Lol!

However.. mentioned evicting the two winder equipped OM's from my camera bag to fit the Electric-Picture-Maker in...

I LOVE my OM10 film SLR... one of the smallest Film SLR's on the market for most of the film-era, its still compact, and its light, and its got enough electrickery in it to make it point and press easy to use. Loverly little camera (without the winder) No Auto-Focus, and as sold, usually no zoom. They are still a great way to have a crack at film photo. and OH so 'cheap'... £20-30 would get you something pretty useable.

A-N-D on a budget... in the last five or six years I have built up the kit around the EPM to get sort of the range of lenses I had for the old film cameras; after adding some SD cards so I didn't run out of space when out and about, and then adding some spare batteries so I didn't run out of electric, when out and about! B-U-T... rather frightening, when I tallied up how much I has spent to get the camera then the lenses to do what I used to with the old OM's.. to make comparison to how much I had spent, in quarter of a century on my film cameras... which was curiousely little for the cameras, most bought second hand or given me for free; but the film, and I shot LOTS of it.. in an era when the average household took less than 100 photo's a year and bought three or four films... I think my archive tallies around 10x that... and I worked out that I has spent more in five years on Digital camera paraphanalia, to take 'free' photo's, than I had in over three decades spent on film and processing the stuff!

A-N-D, NOT having an SD card you can snap away with abandon on; having to be a little more discriminating what you spend a frame on, you tend to be a little more thoughtful about the whole process, and get more better pictures for it.

IF you liked your Lomo diana, it COULD be a rather nice way to go, to get a heck of a lot of camera for very little cash, and get a lot of learning from it along the way; and something 'like' the OM10? With a standard f1.8 50mm on the front? Its a fast lens, its manual focus, it has a bright viewfinder, its not big, its not bulky, its not heavy, and its still easy enough to use... and what you dont pay to get a digital do-da, can buy you a LOT of film for the thing.

Worth a thought...

BUT... remit I suspect is for something electric, and more like what you expect a modern camera to be like, and do what you want it to, and for that... back to top, I would say, Second Hand, D3x00 Nikon and kit 18-55. Its not too bulky, its got lots of learner-bility; it can grow as your skill does, and they are incredibly cheap 2nd hand and far more than capable enough for almost any-one, despite dated specs... daughter is now doing photography at university, that 'old' D3100 is still her front line out and about camera, its not holding her back too much, and its low value means she's not too preciouse about the thing, swinging it around muddy fields or SU bars etc, or terrified it cant come out the bag incase it gets nicked. For maybe £100-£150? That's not just where I suggest you put your money... its where I did! Thrice!
 
A Nikon D3200 c/w 18-55mm VR and 55-200mm VR is a nice combo and, second had, is well with in your £300-£400 price range.
 
If you're worried about which camera to buy, don't try for the camera which you'll be most likely to keep, because you don't know enough to make a good decision. Instead try to buy a useful camera which has the features you really need which is aimed at allowing you to get on with both improving your photographic skills and discover your own photographic preferences while you acquire the education necessary to make a better informed choice. Buy second hand and sell it later. The price difference is the cost of the education it will give you, quite a bargain :)
 
Brilliant advice from Teflon Mike. A good DSLR for £100 - bargain! Add a 2nd hand 50mm 1.8 lens for £60 and that is a hard to beat setup. Should things change in the future you can then save and add more lenses. A DSLR will be better in lower light and at fast kids tracking than a point and shoot. It is much easier to learn on a DSLR too IMO than a compact. I have had what were considered to be good compacts at the time, Canon S95 and Sony RX100 but they were harder to use for me and unless in great light, results were a long way behind a dslr.
 
Brilliant advice from Teflon Mike. A good DSLR for £100 - bargain! Add a 2nd hand 50mm 1.8 lens for £60 and that is a hard to beat setup.

Yea if your not a person who loves the zoom of their old bridge camera, like the OP. And bridge cameras have massive zoom range
 
+ a 50mm is a tad long on apsc, 24 or 35mm might be more versatile.
 
Yea if your not a person who loves the zoom of their old bridge camera, like the OP. And bridge cameras have massive zoom range

Nikon Coolpix L120 bridge camera.....Sony A200 DSLR for a couple months... I did LOVE the zoom of my old bridge camera and actually used it all the time

Sony A200: Kit Lens: 3.88x zoom 18-70mm (27-105mm eq.)
Nikon Coolpix L120: Lens:- 21x optical zoom (25-525mm equivalent)

Looking, I think that Nikon Coolpix L120, might actually be the one the O/H had... and I can understand why she 'loved the zoom'.. just as my O/H did... and so over-used it, and then wondered why she struggled.

As with O/H and so many other's, I think its a big leap to make for many to just NOT to over-use the zoom to get better photo's.

And, I think its a big part of the 'con' behind bridge cameras.

@ the_wandering_shooter: Notice in the specs I have copied from the ads, that for the L120 it says, "Lens:- 21x optical zoom (25-525mm equivalent)"

21x sounds pretty impressive in the sales specs, much more so than 3x on my old Kodak compact! and then 25-525 'equivalent'... equivalent to what? Well, if the salesman was there he might be clued up enough to say, "Equivalent to 35mm"... and we then go off on a sub debate about that being the angle of view, not the perspective, different sensor sizes, and the 'equivalence' of the crop factor... and THAT one gets messy!

BUT... they can use a very small and 'cheap' sensor, and then can use a much 'weaker' and also cheaper lens... and all they have to do is change the numbers to an 'equivalence' and get some pretty impressive statistics for the sales brochure... marketing boys will LOVE it!

So, that's what they do, and why that practice is so rife in the consumer camera realm.

Does it make any difference?

Well, yes.. sort of... some-times!!

If you accept that the big bonus of small sensors and short focal length lenses to suit them, keeps manufacturing costs low; turn that on its head, and suggestion is that bigger sensors and longer focal length lenses are going to be more difficult and expensive to make.. so why would any-one want one?

It's now a question of optimisation; making things big, you tend not to have to make them so accurately. So the 'cheapness' of a small-sensor camera can start to become self defeating, if making a bigger camera, less acurately works as well, more cheaply..

BUT, when you step up from consumer grade compact and bridge cameras to 'enthusiast' grade interchangeable lens cameras, or even 'full-frame' professional grade cameras, you have a much more complicated marketing game.

Expectation of the higher grade cameras is that they will deliver 'better' photo's; they will also have more features, like interchangeable lenses, and an optical view-finder, but they will cost more.... so it becomes a game of swings-and-roundabouts.

So, in the interchangeable lens camera world; more often an 'enthusiast' grade camera; expectations of image quality are higher; but so is the expectation that the camera will have an interchangeable lens. Now you dont have a single product, a 'camera', you have two, a 'camera body' and a 'camera lens'. Before you start, there has to be more engineering put into each to create these stand alone products, and more still to create a mount so that one can be joined to the other.

This would tend to suggest more cost and or less quality, and or more compromises in 'other' features'.

Hence the 'all in one' Bridge camera, might have a 21x zoom lens with 25-525mm 'equivalent' lens, built in, and sell for perhaps £150.

Entry level DSLR, comes with an 18-55mm, 3x zoom lens. But it has a mirror and pentaprism optical view-finder, and an interchangeable lens mount, and possibly a few other features, and costs more like £300 for it.

You 'loose' the amount of 'equivalent' zoom, you gain the optical view-finder and the lens mount, for almost double the money.

However; IF that really big 'zoom' is important to you, you can go buy an accessory lens with that sort of 'zoom'...

Hmmm....

Err nibs Coolpix, 500mm ultimate zoome 'equivilent'... That IS impressive.. A-N-D encouraged her to use it... pressing the zoom button for more and more of a good thing, until it gives no more.....

My D3200; 18-55 as supplied... yes, little dissapointing... so I ferret out the 55-300mm zoom from the bag.... OTMH that added about £200 on top the basic price of the camera, and STILL doesn't have the same amount of zoom as her bridge-camera.... B-U-T!!!!

As O/H discovered, NOT having so much zoom, and not having it so easily available on a button.... and on a larger body camera, begging her to hold the thing properly with two hands, and not hold it at arms length to peer at the screen on the back, but hold it to her face and use the optical; view-finder..... all of a sudden, she stops getting so many blurry photo's, SIMPLY because she is holding the thing with more steady 'support'.

Now; I am a fan of 'wide' lenses rather than 'long' ones... so ass seasoning to taste, but....

Long lenses deliver 'instant impact'. They do this by cropping clutter from the frame. You 'zoom-in' on whatever interests you in a scene, make it big, make it prominent; "Wow! How did you get that close!" it makes for an instantly impressive picture, and the viewer can see instantly what it was you were looking at that was 'interesting'....

SMALL problem with this..... there's nothing else in the photo!

If I were to bore you with a load of my old holiday snaps from when my kids were little.... if I did that, and used a lot of zoom for EVERY photo I took of them.... well, wouldn't get through more than half a dozen before you were bored to tears, and were thinking "YES, wasn't she beautiful as a baby.. get on with it! I've seen her face three times, I KNOW what she looked like! WHERE WERE YOU! What were you doing! Show me Something ELSE!!!"

CONTEXT... and this is the big leap, away from using lots of zoom to grab instant impact. And the start of the art, COMPOSING your photo, to show more than just a kids face, and maybe a bit of beach, but actually including a bit of scenary in the frame to show Weston Pier or Blackpool tower, or whatever to give that photo some context, some relevence, to make it MORE than just a prison mug-shot...

OK I have used the analogy of my kids and holiday snaps, BUT this applies accross the board to ALL photography.

In the specialization of the advertising photographer, where the 'subject' is the thing they want to sell.... seldom is that the ONLY thing in the photo.

If they are selling a car, they put it in a city or on a country road, and they put a driver in it, they dont just shoot it on its own against a white back-ground, they give the subject context, and in most better adverts they do more, they try and evoke a 'mood' and not just show you a car, or a stereo, or a mobile phone, they try and sell you an entire 'Life-Style', and show people doing glamour things, like a Ford Capri (A car that was popular before you were born BTW!), not just in an exotic location, but they show the driver kissing a woman stepping of a sail-boat, or 'something'.

The 'subject' becomes a lot less 'prominent' in the picture; but it is given context, and more, the subject is given relevance to the context, the surrounding, and meaning and mood are implied by that.... its NOT just a prison mug-shot, that shows in stark detail the 'subject' and nothing but the subject!

THIS is where big-zoom starts to become self defeating; its easy instant impact is a one trick dog, and soon becomes very tedious, and you NEED to step back and look at the bigger picture to get that extra 'context' and 'relevance' in the picture.

Now Wider lenses start to work for you, and the craft starts to evolve, looking at the surroundings, how much context do you need, what of surrounding 'clutter' actually gives that context, like Weston Pier or the Blackpool tower or the girl next to the car, and how much of it do you need to make the picture 'interesting' and not just another mug-shot, before the prominence of the 'subject' starts to be lost.

NOW, NOT having so much 'zoom' available on demand can start to make you tackle these questions, and find answers because the camera and or lens, just wont let you zoom in so tight so often; you HAVE to look at that clutter and start thinking about the photo and making decisions for yourself, looking for alternative angles and ways to get a more pleasing composition.

A-N-D you aren't making life harder for the camera; ramping the zoom, pushing it to the higher f-numbers, making it harder to hold steady begging faster shutter speeds....

It ACTUALLY becomes 'easier' to get better photo's with LESS sophisticated cameras and less zoom... but begs more of you, the person gripping the thing to do more with know-how and craft, and not expect the gear to do it all for you...

And THAT is the major leap from consumer cameras to amateur ones, and from casual snapper and gadget fan to hobby-photographer many MANY folk just NEVER make, getting disillusioned with the results they get, even with fancier cameras, because the camera doesn't deliver the 'instant' excellence they hope for in the way the zoom lens delivered instant impact.

Consequently, I have taken the suggestion that the_wandering_shooter wants to get 'back in' to this photo-lark, and progress in the pursuit, as a greater imperative than their affliction for 'zoom'.

Yes, she may be a zoom-fan, but, pandering to that zoom affection, probably wont help her progress, but actually hinder her, and a bridge camera that offers more zoom, is more likely to encourage rather than discourage that zoom dependency, hampering her progress, suggesting chasing better gear, to get whet she hopes, not better craft.

Heck, umpety decades ago, we started out with incredibly unsophisticated cameras; fixed lens compacts with less capability than a modern smart-phone, or overly awkward 'starter' SLR's that did nothing for us, often still with a fixed prime lens, or short range, maybe 2x zoom, we had to use with a light-meter and make our own manual shutter and aperture settings, they lacked so much modern automation! These cameras encouraged us to do what we wanted with craft not kit.

Modern entry level DSLR, by comparison, is every toy in the camera shop, in your hand! They are incredibly capable, and amazingly sophisticated cameras, so simple in point and shoot mode, you can give one to a toddler and they can take good photos! Yet, read tha manual, develop a little craft, they have enough about them they can do pretty much anything a 'pro' can with a top end camera.

All for the small compromise that they DONT have an enormous amount of 'zoom' in their kit lens, when you take them out the box... but even if that is still important... you can still go buy as much zoom as you want for one, and a lot more than you get with an all in one bridge camera.... IF you want it, and can use it.

In the mean time, its that lack, that's likely to encourage learning a little craft to get the most out of the kit in your mit... and THAT can be applied to any camera, with any lens after.
 
Do most people need more than 300mm (which is what the 55-200 and DX combo is)? Sure, for airshows I have used the tamron 150-600, but aside from airshow specific lenses, the longest I have had was the 70-300 which was fine, now my longest is 70-200 which i rarely use. With the huge MP these days you can crop a lot if you need to. I would rather miss 10% of shots through lack of each but have a better quality sensor.
 
I've seen a canon 750d and a sigma 70-200 (or 70-300 whatever it is) for under £400. I have a mate who has both and it's supprisingly good at airshows, bags of detail.
 
If you are happy with a bridge camera it might be worth looking at something like the original Sony RX10. New the original version still go for £670 but you can pick up a used version for your budget. 24 -200 Zoom, shoots RAW and 10 FPS.
 
A Nikon D3200 c/w 18-55mm VR and 55-200mm VR is a nice combo and, second had, is well with in your £300-£400 price range.

This. Or the Canon equivalent (600D upwards). See which one suits you best, there's really not much in it picture quality wise (although the Nikons are slightly better on paper but nothing worth fretting about).
 
I bought a D3400 earlier this year. It is easy to use. The cheap end of Nikon lenses (18-55, 35 f/1.8 and 55-200) seem very good value.

Watch out for lens compatability if you get a D3100. I am not sure if the AF-P lenses will work so get the AF-S ones.
 
Seems not many people bothered to read the part where I said I don't want a DSLR or Mirrorless because I don't want to have to spend more money on lenses. I've chosen a Canon Powershot G9X II cause like I said, I don't want to be lugging around a huge bulky camera. Thanks though.
 
Seems not many people bothered to read the part where I said I don't want a DSLR or Mirrorless because I don't want to have to spend more money on lenses. I've chosen a Canon Powershot G9X II cause like I said, I don't want to be lugging around a huge bulky camera. Thanks though.

But you also said you wanted something with extra reach which the G9X isn't going to give you. The G9Xii is a 3X zoom (10mm to 30mm) lens.
The G1Xii is a 5x Zoom (24mm to 120mm) for around £400. I have this as a walk about camera when I don't want to lug around my DSLR's and even then I find the zoom lacking.

Regardless, I'd get the G1Xmkii instead of the G9Xmkii. It's a great little camera, slightly better zoom and only £20 more.
 
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Seems not many people bothered to read the part where I said I don't want a DSLR or Mirrorless because I don't want to have to spend more money on lenses. I've chosen a Canon Powershot G9X II cause like I said, I don't want to be lugging around a huge bulky camera. Thanks though.
If you've chosen the G9X already, that's fine but you might find it limiting. As pointed out, that camera doesn't have a massive zoom, so it's not great, but also, what I found with a bridge camera trying to photograph my small kids, the AF couldn't track them quick enough, so I then moved to a DSLR for better AF and higher quality images.

I have 2 suggestions though, both Sony.
Firstly a secondhand Sony A6000 (from mpb £259) add a kit lens for 80-100 then if you need a longer zoom, add one of these for £140 ) = £480-ish. It's a smaller Sony mirrorless (and these lenses are not big ones), with good AF but yes, it's not as convenient as a bridge camera.

Secondly, I'd serious consider the Sony RX100 as an option. The Mk3 version can be had for about £300ish on ebay and they are an excellent camera.
 
Seems like the OP stomped off in a teenage strop. :rolleyes:
Seems not many people bothered to read the part where I said I don't want a DSLR or Mirrorless because I don't want to have to spend more money on lenses. I've chosen a Canon Powershot G9X II cause like I said, I don't want to be lugging around a huge bulky camera. Thanks though.

People often don't read the question and answer it, we see this all the time.

From the car forum world...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWnAdB-vkXo
 
People often don't read the question and answer it, we see this all the time.

From the car forum world...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWnAdB-vkXo

The OP stated that she wanted a bridge camera with a long zoom but also wanted something with a quick auto focus and wanted to shoot raw so that really rules out most bridge cameras.

She didn't say specifically that she didn't want a DSLR, only that she didn't think she would be able to save for more lenses. Hence peoples recommendations of a DSLR with a versatile zoom lens which would meet most of her requirements within her budget.

The OP did not mention mirrorless at all on her OP, only in her second post where she tells us nobody bothered to read her post and that she'd opted for a point and shoot with a 4x zoom which doesn't meet any of her requirements other that it will shoot raw.

Maybe the OP should have read her OP!
 
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I'd say it's very difficult for most photographers to answer these very specific questions - we mostly don't know that much about bridge cameras, we do know they're often compromised and with very cheap used DSLRs and lenses available they're what we lean to recommending. I guess it's frustrating to read replies that don't specifically answer your question but the replies were obviously well intended
 
Your one, stop turn key solution to 'almost' all you 'think' want.. for just shy of £400 at Curry's in your local high-street... no know-how required, just trust the sales-man... sort of begs question, why ask for opinion elsewhere really, but there you are.

Zoom:- 28-80 equivalent... useful but ultimately limiting, and it cant be 'upgraded' without replacing the whole camera. Fast f2 aperture, but oinly at the wide-end is pretty impressive, but f5 at the tele end is a bit 'eek' limiting.

Sensor: 1" sensor is more generous than typical smart-phone, compact and bridge cameras; but with many manufacturers fitting DSLR sized MFT and APS-C sensors, to my mind it a bit of a marketing fop, as something overly 'useful'.

RAW file format? I ignored in OP's opening. Its not something I personally think is particularly important, especially in a compact/consumer camera.

Raw format begs that a photo be uploaded to a PC and manually diddled in photo-editor before it can be viewed/used, rather than diddled to standard jpg algorithm at source.

Benefit of RAW, which doesn't make the sensor any more sensitive, doesn't make the aperture any wider, or capture any alternative shutter-speed; just lets you have 'some' post-capture influence over the amount of sensor amplification, to effect some image brightness, and play with the response curves between bright and dark for each colour layer. Rather inflates image file sizes on storage, and creates and begs more faff to the job of making a photo for any-one to look at, and re-enforces the notion that you can 'correct' things in post process, rather than encourage any-one to get it right first time about, 'clean-in-camera' so they don't have to faff in post.

'In Camera Raw' that allows some raw editing on the diddy preview screen, err.. more marketing fop to my mind.. and fits with Cannon marketing claims that this camera is aimed at Smart-Phone users 'stepping up'..

Whole 'notion' though begs the suggestion that rather like an all in one mega-zoom bridge its re-enforcing 'tech-dependency' rather than breaking it; offering smart-phone features to encourage the dedicated camera fan to carry on trying to do what they did with a Smart-phone and Instagram! And NOT actually make that mind-switch to progress and develop any craft, and expect the camera to do-it-all for them.

However, it's a pretty good higher end consumer compact, and sure OP will, at least in the short term be very satisfied with it.

It's just a shame that she has seemingly chosen to retrench into the comfort zone of over-the-counter consumer compact, having suggested she wants to 'progress' further, and spent so much money, when she also implied that funds were tight, and could have acquired SO much more, that would have tackled the things she suggested she wanted to, like slow focus, and allowed and encouraged her to do so much more, for so much less... but such is life... its all a learning curve.
 
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