Nikon P900?

Massive zoom.
I kind of understand about big zoom sensors being crap compared to DSLR’s but a mate has one for ornithological stuff & his results are pretty decent TBH. I’ve seen plenty of shots taken with a 300mm prime lens which are excellent to say the least but the cost of one of those is….well, you know.
Seen a few P900’s for the £400 mark, used.

Talk me into it or forget the idea?

My DSLR is a Lumix G1, & I haven’t seen many big decent lenses for it, but I haven’t looked that far.

The sensor is tiny compared to that in your Panasonic G1. G1 is 4/3rds, nikon is 1/2.3″, similar to the little red one, bottom left.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-coolpix-p900/amp/

Seems like a reasonable review which kind of says what I’d expect; that is to say it is very good, great price and convenience but it doesn’t produce images quite as ‘nice’ as an slr and suffers from its sensor size and shutter lag. But if it suits your needs then it sounds kind a great one camera solution.

I have a good slr with a bunch of expensive lenses which can produce lovely shots. But it can be a ball ache, and means I frequently carry 8kgs of gear. My dad has a super zoom camera as he has tried a dslr and just couldn’t be bothered with the faff and technicality of it. His shots aren’t as ‘good’ as mine, but at least he gets something, whereas with a dslr he probably wouldn’t get anything.

Only you know the trade offs you are willing to make, but the bottom line is that the P900 sounds like a good camera.

“I have a good slr with a bunch of expensive lenses which can produce lovely shots. But it can be a ball ache, and means I frequently carry 8kgs of gear. My dad has a super zoom camera as he has tried a dslr and just couldn’t be bothered with the faff and technicality of it. His shots aren’t as ‘good’ as mine, but at least he gets something, whereas with a dslr he probably wouldn’t get anything.”

That’s where I am.

My DSLR lives in a drawer. My compact and my mobile phone live in my pocket. Guess which two cameras get me all my best shots.

My DSLR is a Lumix G1, & I haven’t seen many big decent lenses for it, but I haven’t looked that far.

A Lumix G1 isn’t a DSLR.
Anyway, there is a 100-300mm or 100-400mm lens, but they are not cheap. Or the 45-200 is pretty cheap and not bad. You might be able to find the older version of the 100-300 used. That would be equivalent to 200-600mm on a full frame DSLR.

Depends on what you want to take photos of. Bird photography can be hard to get good results. As well as the lens, its also depends on the camera speed. ie how quickly and accurately can it focus, and how fast in burst mode. As well as knowing where the birds are, and patience. You might take hundreds of photos to get a few decent ones.

As an idea, this was taken by my mate with his P900. Not sure what distance though.
I don’t think that’s a bad shot by a bridge camera.

I can’t see the subject, there’s an owl in the way.

It’s all in the post processing.

It’s all in the post processing

Post reported

The Olympus 40-150mm f4/5.6 which will fit your camera is around £130. It’s tiny, and lightweight, albeit a bit slow. Don’t forget that the lens at the long end is equivalent to 300mm.
At that price, it’s worthwhile buying it, seeing how you get on with it- you may find that cropping the photos you get with it will give better results than your mate is getting with his P900. If it doesn’t work out just sell it on, you won’t lose much.
Here’s a flickr group for the lens to give you an idea of it’s capability.
40-150mm f4

There’s also an Olympus 150-300mm for around £350, equivalent to 600mm.

Depends on what you want to take photos of. Bird photography can be hard to get good results. As well as the lens, its also depends on the camera speed. ie how quickly and accurately can it focus, and how fast in burst mode.

+1

Bird photography is just an example but the difference between a “proper” DSLR and anything else is huge.
I don’t own any lenses longer than 20mm that are not at most f2.8

Just taking the owl as an example (and one not moving)
The focus is not on the owl but the leaves… the owl is slightly out
The background is busy taking the eye away from the owl because its in focus… (a really wide aperture would have got the owl in focus and the background blurred)

With a DSLR you very quickly learn to manipulate all the dails/knobs and switches with the camera to your eye… or even be setting it as you are lifting the camera…. when you press the shutter it’s instantaneous… which is why people tend to stick to one brand (because buttons/dials stay more or less the same etc.) – I’ve used some really nice Cannon cameras but being used to Nikon it’s always really difficult and I tend to miss shots I’d have got easily on my Nikon…

It’s really down to feel and being able to combine that with experience.
After a while you know more or less what speed/aperture/depth of field and it’s just a matter of getting the camera set… this type of consistency is really hard on a non-true DSLR. That and every photo is a minute snap of time.. be it 1/2000th or a second or 1/30th of a second … its usually about that “second”

Incidentally I’ve taken photo’s that have taken very literally hours of waiting where the photo itself (like say the sun just coming through clouds or owl spreading its wings in the above) are a fraction of a second … so for example if I was waiting for the owl to spread it’s wings I’d already be set to use a faster speed, background would be out of focus and focus would be set on manual (even if it got where it was by autofocus and then turning it off) ….

In between a DSLR and my phone I’ve really not seen much (other than zoom) … it’s either a “photo” or a “snapshot” … resolution/light etc the phone can do a technically good job but taking a “photo” on it is more luck..

Bridge cameras fall somewhere between…. and the odd “taken on a bridge” doesn’t make that incorrect. If I count 1:5 as “success” on the DSLR and 1:1000 on a phone then the bridge might work OK 1:100 or 1:200….

I don’t think that’s a bad shot 8-bit owl graphic.

FTFY

Post reported

Good. Over-exposed, de-focused and the white-balance is off. Apart from the post-processing, the post itself detracts from the main subject. Please remove post.

My DSLR is a Lumix G1, & I haven’t seen many big decent lenses for it, but I haven’t looked that far.

Well I guess it all depends on whether you reall want a long telephoto lens or not. What would you use it for; do you want to take pictures of birds and wildlife?

That Nikon P900 is quite remarkable but it is worth highlighting the fact that in that review, they are taking pictures out in the Grand Canyon, where apart from the spectacular scenery, there is also a ton of light to work with.

Lots of lovely light will hide a multitude of sins in a camera and make even the most pocketable of pocket cameras really sing. In this country we don’t often get situations like that.