After a great trip in Nairobi National Park on safari yesterday, skiving off work, I’ve realised that maybe it’s time to invest in something a little more capable than my Olympus Mju Tough.

I’m not that competent/capable/interested a photographer that I will want to spend hundreds on a full blown DSLR rig and so ended up looking at the Lumix G1, although I’ve seen comments about shutter lag from pressing the button to the camera taking the photo and that’s one of the problems with the compact – missed some really good opportunities when wildlife scarpered. The other thing with the compact’s the lack of zoom…

Any thoughts o worldly wise photographers of STW…?

Very similar situation to you (we also own the Olympus Mju Tough). We ended up with a Lumix G6, a CSC (ie a scaled down DSLR). You can choose different lenses, but cheap it is not!

These things are called Compact System Cameras or Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras and are SLRs without the optical viewfinder which allows them to be much smaller.

Shutter lag shouldn’t be an issue on a decent one – they are as usable as an SLR in most* situations. They are good, go and try one in a shop. You’ll be impressed. If looking at Olympus the ones with a number of 3 or more (ie E-PL3) have much better focusing performance and hence less lag.

However wildlife photograpy is bloody difficult and to do well requires many thousands of quid’s worth of kit and/or many hours of time so you’re better off just leaving it 🙂 If you just want lots of zoom then get an ultrazoom compact, cos you’ll never find that level of zoom in an SLR/CSC for lower budgets.

* This statement will cause all the STW camera gear freaks to start waffling and repeating factoids they’ve read on review sites but in reality you’ll be fine unless you have certain specific requirements. And let’s not forget that compact size is a significant requirement 🙂

If you just want lots of zoom then get an ultrazoom compact, cos you’ll never find that level of zoom in an SLR/CSC for lower budgets

Pretty much what I was going to suggest. There’s a Lumix with a 60x optical zoom, which would be ideal, I reckon.
Not stupidly pricey, either.
I don’t have info to hand at the mo,sadly.

Get a 2nd hand DSLR eg d50/70/80/40 from LCE with a kit lens. Will probs do more than you could ever want.

This d40 with 18-55kit lens is a bargain at 129.99

LCE

Or this D80 with 18-135 at £199 is poss even better.

or a new low end Nikon d3100 at 349

A ‘bridge’ camera might be a better option, they’re more compact than an slr, not that much bigger than a decent zoom compact, and in my experience, unless you’re wanting to produce big prints, quality is more than good enough for most people.

There are lots of the above with 30 – 40x optical zoom for under £400 these days, but if I were you I’d go for one with a traditional view finder, and try to find one with an slr style zoom ring, not a button on the body as they’re normally very slow.

I’ve got a (5 year old probably) entry level DSLR (Canon EOS 1000D) and a couple of low – mid range lenses, and am contemplating switching back to bridge camera as I just find them much handier, and more likely to get used as it’s less faff having all that optical zoom than swapping lenses and they’re far less bulky to carry around.

The amount of pre-set photo modes available on bridge cameras can also help compensate for lack of skill and can produce some stunning images you just don’t get with an slr without having at least half (but probably more) an idea what you’re doing.

Get a 2nd hand DSLR eg d50/70/80/40 from LCE with a kit lens. Will probs do more than you could ever want.

Given that he wants lots of zoom for wildlife and he doesn’t want a DSLR, I suspect it won’t do anything he wants 🙂

DSLRs are not for everyone. They are only for people who like to faff with photography (like me). For someone who just wants pictures they are worse than compacts.

As above – if you want lots of zoom and you don’t want to spend hundreds then a bridge cam with ultra zoom is your only option.

That Lumix might have 60x zoom but what sort of picture quality will you get with it!

I had/have a Lumix FZ38 with 28 times zoom but you wouldn’t ever really use that level of zoom unless you were trying to identify something at a distance.

I bought a Lumix G6 with the 14-140 lens recently, which gives me 10 times zoom, for £600. I think they might be stopping that bundle as you don’t see it often and Panasonic dumped a load of them through their Panasonic outlet on ebay recently.

It is only a little bigger than the FZ38 and gives you a lot more control over manual settings – in fact it fits in the same compact lowepro APEX 100 bag as the FZ38.

I also bought a 100-300 lens, but at 300 you need a stable tripod, remote shutter release, and a high shutter speed to get decent results.

If you live near Horsell in Surrey you could come and have a look and compare it to the FZ38.

If you still want a superzoom then the FZ1000 seems to be popular on the web review sites – it doesn’t have that 60x zoom with a more sensible and usable 24 :

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fz1000

Second hand Pentax K100D, with two lenses for £62, boxed, manuals and barely used.
I then bought a bag and an ancient manual 50mm lens to complement the two zooms.
Great bit of kit – cheap enough that I actually take it with me and take it out, not faff with keeping it clean or free from damage.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/dz2KyM]Loch an Eilein[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/cZ4Um3]Danny MacAskill[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/dAxi3z]Damper bread / stick bread[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/ow49Np]Commonwealth Games Mountain Biking Glasgow 2014[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/ovNZm2]Commonwealth Games Mountain Biking Glasgow 2014[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/ovVmgC]Suffolk Hols 2014[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
[url=https://flic.kr/p/e9vTbu]IMGP0552[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr

Do you want to be this guy?

That Lumix might have 60x zoom but what sort of picture quality will you get with it!

They are generally surprisingly good, from reading the reviews and looking at the sample images. To get better you will have to spend a ton of money, that’s the point.

Oh and when praising a camera, don’t post up lovely images that would’ve been lovely on any camera. Show some sort of extreme situation or post up 100% details or something useful!

I’ve got a Fuji Finepix HS30EXR which is a bridge camera and Im really pleased with it.
Got a ridiculously wide zoom range (24-720mm, 35mm equiv) and is pretty responsive.
The battery life is pretty good and there are loads of modes so you can let the camera do its stuff or you can fiddle about.
Its got a manual zoom which I like.
The downsides being if you go much over ISO400 it gets a bit noisy. For general stuff its great.
I picked mine up for £150 on ebay and I really like it.

Dont be fooled into thinking its a proper SLR, its not. But for most situations most of the time its great.

Given that he wants lots of zoom for wildlife and he doesn’t want a DSLR, I suspect it won’t do anything he wants

well his objection to a DSLR was price, shutter lag and lack of zoom

spend hundreds on a full blown DSLR rig

shutter lag …. lack of zoom…

it seems my suggestions addressed all those issues. With a lumix at 200 quid, a 2nd hand d40 (with a zoom from 18-55) was only 129, or with a lot of zoom on the d80 +18-135 lens at £200 it seems I have addressed his concerns that he listed. Did you bother to read the OP or do you just like being rude to women?

a 2nd hand d40 (with a zoom from 18-55)

An 18-55 is going to be next to no use for wildlife! Unless you are in a zoo perhaps.

Did you bother to read the OP or do you just like being rude to women?

1) You do realise that we have no way of telling your gender from the posts don’t you?

2) I did read the OP, which is why I thought the cheap DSLR idea was a bad one.

3) I don’t like being rude to people, but if you continue to shamelessly play the gender card I might start 🙂

(please note that’s robust banter not aggression)

Olympus OM-D E-M10. Astonishingly good camera, very small but handles beautifully. All the features you would expect, good range of lenses as and when you get into things and above all takes very nice photos.

Only sold mine as needed a second Canon body otherwise it would have been a keeper.

Why not go for a Canon EOS M? It’s a mirror-less compact with interchangeable lenses. Canon make 18-55mm and 55-200mm zooms for it so you should get what you need from those focal lengths.

I’ve got one with the 18-55mm lens and a 22mm prime lens as my walkabout camera. The picture quality is great. I also have a Canon 1DX for when things get serious but the beauty about the EOS M is that Canon also make an adaptor for it so I can use D-SLR lenses if I want to.

IME you want either compact or dslr

the bridge route gives you a camera that’s awkward to carry (ie needs a bag) but isn’t as responsive, capable or usable. Pick one or the other imo

Don’t get a DSLR. You’ll end up paying another couple of hundred on a long zoom lens then you’ll have to carry the bugger about and swap lenses over when you want to snap some animal you’ve spotted whilst you were taking photos of the kids etc.

Just not worth it unless you are ‘into’ it.

good range of lenses as and when you get into things

I’m not that competent/capable/interested a photographer

+1 for a bridge camera or an advanced compact camera.

If you don’t want to spend time learning about photography then I don’t think a DSLR or CSC are for you.

If you want a large zoom then again DSLR is not for you unless you are going to send mega bucks.

In good light conditions the super zoom bridge cameras are pretty good. You are not going to get pro level image quality but most novices usually find the results are great.

Blimey, what have I started…? Oh yeah, it’s STW… 😆

Sorry, the “interested” bit was probably a bit wrong, I am interested, just not going to make it my primary hobby, especially not wildlife, that’s all I meant – I just happen to be lucky in that I’m spending 6 months in East Africa and would like to get some better photos than the compact’ll allow, and then carry on that trend when I get home. In terms of zoom, the , Mju Tough’s something like a 5x optical but I’d like something better – yesterday I got within 2 metres of a (baby) croc trying to get a decent enough close up but it scarpered. Plenty of the more “routine” stuff quite close (giraffe, zebra, etc) but trying to get the elusive rhino, hippos and lions proved difficult.

I think a good ‘bridge’ camera will be better than a compact with a long-ish zoom, like the TZ-series.
The only reason I generally avoid bridge cameras is they confuse security bods in music venues, because they look something like a DSLR, the gorillas think you’re a pro and try to confiscate the camera, or make you stop taking pics.
For shooting stuff outdoors, in bright light, and probably under circumstances where the camera can be supported at more extreme zoom ranges.
Just had a (very) quick shufti at the lumix FZ-1000, and it has a pretty good spec, including a 1″ sensor, and ISO up to 12,800, although over 6400 things get pretty noisy.
If the OP can find a good s/h* one, it looks like a pretty good compromise.
*Or can afford a new one.

Got a fujifilm zoom if you want it. £50 it’s yours. Needs a cable for the comp but works good.

I use an Olympus OM-D E-M5 – there is a newer, cheaper E-M10 out now which is what I would suggest. Throw in two or three choice lenses and you are all set.

My current choices are the Lumix 14mm pancake, Olumpus 45mm f1.8 and if you want a bit of wildlife the Olympus 70-300 is grand (140-600 equivalent – bit slow but it isn’t too shabby)

[url=https://flic.kr/p/ocLYgr]22nd July 2014[/url] by Rob Sutherland, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/hr5ids]10th November 2013[/url] by Rob Sutherland, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/gV9HrD]_A231166[/url] by Rob Sutherland, on Flickr

All those were taken using the big zoom. The pancake lens gets used when mountain biking and the 45mm for portraits and panoramics.

I love it… not quite as much as the big Nikon D800E… but it is pretty damn good!

I took a Lumix TZ on safari and was quite pleased with the results. I wouldn’t have wanted to be faffing with large and expensive bits of kit.

Wonderchump – are you running the EOS-M with the firmware upgrade?
Does it improve low light focusing?

Sorry, the “interested” bit was probably a bit wrong, I am interested, just not going to make it my primary hobby

BTW I wasn’t having a dig at you, just saying that to use a DSLR properly you need to take an active interest otherwise you won’t know what settings to use. A bridge camera or compact will have more user friendly options for you to get the best out of your photos.

Whilst you may not want a full manual mode, having an aperture and a shutter priority mode is useful and you don’t need to be a full-on enthusiast to use them effectively.

A CSC will have these options, as does the FZ1000 Panasonic, which looks pretty good :

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/cameras-and-camcorders/cameras/compact-cameras/panasonic-lumix-fz1000-1252777/review

A ‘bridge’ camera might be a better option, they’re more compact than an slr, not that much bigger than a decent zoom compact, and in my experience, unless you’re wanting to produce big prints, quality is more than good enough for most people.

At the risk of jumping in, could I ask he experts a question? I have an old bridge camera (Canon Powershot Pro1) and whilst it’s generally pretty good, I find it very hard to control shallow depth of field, blurred backgrounds for portraits are especially difficult to achieve, even on the widest aperture. I didn’t seem to have much trouble when I used film SLRs, so I *think* it’s the camera, not me.

So, would a better, more modern bridge camera solve my problem, or would I need a DSLR?

Part of the problem is depth of field is dictated by the aperture. On bridge and compacts there are often no physical changes in the aperture, so the depth of field doesnt actually change.
My Fuji for example has a fixed aperture and the camera just tweaks the exposure to compensate for the aperture changes. So you dont get much variance in the DoF. It can do stuff electronically to suggest changes, but not a great deal.

All those were taken using the big zoom.

You need to specify how far away you were at the time 🙂

whilst it’s generally pretty good, I find it very hard to control shallow depth of field

The smaller the sensor, the greater the depth of field. And a small sensor is the main difference between an SLR and a compact – besides lenses. So you’re always going to struggle.

You’ll also probably not be able to get as small an aperture, as bigyinn says.

to use a DSLR properly you need to take an active interest otherwise you won’t know what settings to use.

Hmm.. not necessarily – auto mode on an SLR is going to do much the same thing as auto mode on a compact. You won’t really be at a specific disadvantage when taking pictures with an SLR – the main downsides if you aren’t taking advantages of the benefits are the size and the fact that lenses tend to be less versatile. By which I mean that if you want macro you need a second lens, then if you want telephoto you need a third lens etc etc.

I bought a super zoom compact bridge camera thingy when microbits was born. Total rubbish. The zoom, while great, needed the brightest of bright days to be useable, the shutter speed otherwise ensured a proper shaky picture otherwise. I also missed every bloody good shot I went for, the delay was just a fraction too long so that I missed it each time. Drove me insane. I ended up getting a Nikon DSLR with a couple of lenses in a deal, complete with a small bag and a couple of memory card. The only issue now is I take too many pictures! Best £400 I’ve spent to get memories of the kids.

I bought a super zoom compact bridge camera thingy when microbits was born. Total rubbish.

They do vary! Some reviews of superzoom cameras with image stabilization suggest the long zoom is more usable than that. IS is a must with long zooms handheld anyway ime.

Cheap long telephoto lenses for SLRs aren’t brilliant either tbh. You will need IS.

If you were just taking kid photos though then a moderate zoom will be all you need. We’re talking abou wildlife here which is a different (and dark and murky) world.

I grabbed a used Olympus E-PL1 for under £100 including the stock kit lens and have to say I’m well chuffed with it

Going to grab a pancake lens at some point (shop nearby has one plus adapter for all OM lenses for £60) later in the year.

I regularly take awful photo’s, but there have been a few with this I’d actually not mind showing people 😉

I bought my FZ38 bridge as I found my TZ5 camera wasn’t so good in low light indoors.

The FZ38 was better allround with a handy instant movie button.

I lent it to a guy at work who had a new kid – he then got one and is still well-pleased with it after a couple of years.

Now I would recommend the G6 though as the results with it are better, and more consistently so, and it is only fractionally bigger, and no-where near as big as a DSLR, which you need a level of commitment to carry.

The number of people who think ‘oh yeah I want to take better pictures, I need an SLR!’, spunk £600 on one, use it for a few days then leave it in a cupboard forever is quite large, I reckon.

Here we go then:

Lumix G6

Given I’m out here for a while I’ll get VAT free as well. Yay!

So forgive my ignorance, the last time I handled a proper camera was my dad’s old Olympus SLR 20 years ago, what would the 45-150mm lens be equivalent in zoom terms – circa x10…?

Digital cameras have a ‘crop factor’ which is basically the ratio of the size of the sensor to a frame of 35mm film. On an Olympus SLR for instance the sensor is half the size of 35mm film so the crop factor is 2, and hence a 50mm focal length is equivalent to a 100mm focal length on a 35mm SLR.

I think that Lumix has a crop factor of 2 also.

For that kind of cash mind, you could get an EM-10.. just sayin.. 🙂

slight hijack – for general landscape photography and sightseeing is a CSC better than a bridge superzoom as an all-rounder?
For example I want to take photos of mountains, climbing routes, mountain huts, ice-creams, beers, food, night sky, street scenes etc but I want a small sized camera.
Sporty fast action shots and photos of dancing eejits are not on my list.

CSCs are better than bridges in terms of image quality and responsiveness – the only caveat is cost, ability to pack up small (bridge camera lenses tend to fold away into the body) and the fact that you’ll need to buy and carry extra lenses to match the lens of a superzoom bridge camera.

However, a CSC with a kit (ie the standard lens that usually comes with it) will do all those things you asked for pretty well I’d say.

Olympus now do a pancake (ie very thin) lens that folds out to become a zoom lens, so it gives you a standard range of focal lengths but means your camera is now pocketable.

EDIT so do Panasonic apparently.

thanks
so if you can get by with an equivalent 28-80mm lens then the CSC is the better all-rounder?

The Olympus EM-10 is a micro 4/3rd camera like the Panasonic G6, so the crop factor is the same, so 2.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-sensor-size.htm

The Olympus is a very viable alternative to the Pansonic camera – also look at the Panasonic GF – but I think the Olympus lenses are generally more expensive and they do there image stabilisation in the camera whereas Panasonic do it in the lens, so although the lenses are fit compatible they are not image stabilisation compatible.

The G6 I got had the 14-140 lens, which is very useful for general use as it covers a lot of range. The one you linked to means swapping lenses around, which might be seen as a pain.

Unfortunately I can’t see anyone selling that kit anymore and buying the body and lens seperately adds up.