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.