The GF said she fancied "one of those cameras that aren't small and compact, but not a full on camera like yours" as she's seen a lot of bird ringers using them because of their obscene macro capabilities.

I assume she means bridges. As I loved my Finepix, I'm thinking we'll stick with fuji, but they seem to have released so many now it's hard to keep track of what's new and whats old and what's good and what's bad.

A local shop has a reboxed HS20-EXR going quite cheap, but it's pretty big and the pictures I've seen seem top suffer from noise quite a lot.

The alternative is a cheaper s4080, which would be smaller. I'm struggling to find a comparison of the 2 with pictures though.

The other selling point is the 30x zoom both the hs20 and s4080 have, which would outshine my 400mm lens a bit, useful for taking pictures of birds a way off...

Can't really help tbh, never had a bridge camera but before I got my SLR I was thinking of getting a Fuji, not that that's much help

I saw a rebox for £199 I think it was, but they had sold it yesterday. I've stumped up the cash for a new one for kathryn though, hopefully it'll be worth it. If she decides it's too big or confusing though I can exchange it in the shop

When I played with it in the shop it seemed cool, battery compartment felt a bit plasticy, but other than that it was good. I guess it shouldn't be that confusing as the auto modes new when to switch to macro mode etc. main thing is if it's possible for her to one hand hold, it's not as big as the 7d, but her hands are dinky...

I've got an S9600 and had an s5600 before that. I still use the S9600 frequently over my A200 for the moveable viewfinder, live view and excellent 300mm zoom. Probably older models than you'll be looking at but a definite vote here for Fuji bridges.

Quote from: Mongoose on December 14, 2011, 20:12:16 PM

Can't comment on the current Fuji lineup, but my wife got a Canon powershot 220 just before our wedding, very nice for someone who wants lots of zoom with very little bulk. It's not quite a match for my slr with a 300mm attached but it holds its own.

Well the HS20 is meant to be 24-720mm, compared to my 100-400mm lens, so she may come out trumps on the focal length ><

But your 7d is still crop sensor right? So actually its 600 plays 720 which isn't much. My money's still on the SLR for overall image quality

the fuji will have a very cropped sensor indeed, but they're quoting "35mm equivalent" focal lengths because thats the only standard available which the public is in any way familiar with. Really they ought to quote angle of view, but that would require educating the punters about what's actually going on and its much easier to just say "yeah it's got a (insert 35mm equivalent here)"