Hello Nick, thanks for the super feedback here. You have given me a lot to think about....
My current compact is old and lacking life including the macro clarity I need for photographing close up jewellery. I work with lots of colour in clay and need to have as accurate as possible photographs for my portfolio and my website.
I have never held a bridge but then I had never held a hand drill before...I'm prepared for change.
I need a new camera and thought that a bridge would be better than a compact. Yes, it would still be used for family photos too but essentially for my work.
My view is that perhaps any bridge would be better than the current compact but I would prefer to have one that has excellent image result.
I hope this makes sense.
Kylee
I think there may be a trade-off between image quality and amount of zoom.
Bridge cameras have huge amounts of zoom, from 20x or so to 35x or so. In order to provide this amount of zoom, and do that with a single lens, the sensor has to be very small. This is why all bridge cameras have very small sensors.
In general, very small sensors cannot produce as high quality results as larger sensors. This may not matter too much in some cases, for example where the camera is used in good light and can use its base ISO (often ISO 100). However, poorer light needs one or both of two things - a larger aperture, to let in more light to the camera, or a higher ISO. This hits two limitations of bridge cameras: their lenses with huge zooms don't have very big apertures; and because of their small sensors they don't do too well with higher ISOs.
What type of camera is best for you may depend on how much zoom you need. If you don't need the massive zoom of a bridge camera you could get a camera with a bit bigger sensor. I'm not really familiar with these, and so other people here may be able to give you better information, but the Panasonic LX5 (£340) and the Canon S95 (£250) are compact cameras in this class which I have heard produce good quality results. Another, physically larger option, might be the Canon G12 (£370).
All these cameras let you use RAW for your images. This quite possibly would not matter to you, but as colour rendition is particularly important to you it might, as RAW is said to (I don't use it) give you easier control over setting the white balance of your images. I don't know about the Canon (or other) cameras, but the Panasonic LX5 has the same feature as the G3 that I use that lets you adjust the white balance the camera uses by altering its colour rendition on two axes, Amber/Blue and Green/Magenta. My wife is a plantswoman who is very particular in wanting plant colours to be rendered realistically. With the G3 we have altered the white balance using these two axes and she is now content with the colours. That is not a sufficient reason to choose the LX5 (or any other Panasonic camera), and other makes may have a similar facility, but it is another factor to think about in making your choice.
BTW, the G12 has an articulated screen like some of the bridge cameras, and this might be useful for you when photographing jewellery. I don't know how you intend to do this, but if you are taking shots from above then an articulated screen might make this easier.
Using a camera with a slightly larger sensor like these three may give you higher quality images, and better results in lower light levels, than a bridge camera.
The Cameras section (see menu bar at top of home page) of the
dpreview web site has information about a lot of cameras. I often find a useful starting point.
