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Which superzoom camera should I now buy?

The world’s financial system, run by institutions that were a few short years ago considered to be too big to fail but which are now too big to bail, is collapsing. But, the making of mere things, not now nearly so fatally deranged by government imposed regulations or corrupted by government supplied moral hazards, continues to flourish. Will thing-making survive the financial turmoil of the next few years? Who knows? Meanwhile, it has been and it remains a good time to be alive and thing-using.

A thing I particularly enjoy using is my digital camera. However, my current camera feels a bit ancient, and I believe I could now get a better one. But which? In this posting I solicit advice on the matter.

Very roughly, there are now three types of digital camera. There are the little ones like face powder cases which people carry for fun, such cameras often nowadays being included in mobile phones. At the other extreme, there are the SLRs with a small mountain of lenses you can attach to them, for people who, facing the choice between life and photography, have chosen photography. And then there are cameras for people like me, who adore photography but who also want lives. What we want is the absolute best camera we can have, without having to swap lenses all the time.

Well, that’s how it sometimes seems to me. To be more polite to the SLR crowd, it may be more a matter of how they like to photograph, compared to how I like to. They photograph slowly and carefully and infrequently. I photograph voraciously and opportunistically, one moment snapping something right under my nose (like a mad safety notice), and the next moment wanting to capture something I spot in the far distance (like a big new tower with something else amusing in the shot between it and me – often involving a trick of the light which may vanish at any moment), and I never know which it will be until I see it. You can surely appreciate how annoying swapping lenses back and forth would be for me. What I want is one super-versatile lens, which I can either make erect or flaccid depending on distance, within about one second. For the SLR fraternity, artistic impression and precision of image is all. For me, those are good, but the point of the snap is what is being snapped. So long as you can see that okay, usually in a photo that I include in a blog posting, good enough, technically speaking, is, for me, good enough.

For several years now I have had a Canon S5 IS, and very satisfactory it has been. But now, things have moved on, and I can now get a technically much improved camera, with does much better pictures and has massively more zoom, hardly any bigger and while still not having to faff about with those lenses.

Those who think I am wrong and that I should get an SLR can comment away to that effect all they like, but I will pay no attention. What I want is comments about what I am now looking at. And what I am now looking at is two cameras of the sort that I have just described, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150 and the Canon SX40 HS.

LumixFZ150.jpg   CanonSX40HS.jpg

There are already an abundance of reviews of these two beasts on line, including even reviews like this, which compare the two head to head. But, I would love to know what our commentariat is able to tell me about this choice, before I go ahead and make it. Both the above cameras have twiddly screens, like the one demonstrated by the Canon in the above photo. My current Canon S5 has this feature, and I would hate to be without it. Last Saturday, for instance, I was absolutely not the only one photo-ing those veteran cars, and I often had to hold my camera up above the heads of the crowd in front of me to get any sort of shot. Contrariwise, you often want to put the camera right down on the floor, to get (e.g.) the exact dramatic cityscape background that you want, for something like an outdoor portrait. In each of the above cases, only a twiddly screen will tell you what you are getting. There are also quite a few circumstances when I am taking snaps but would much rather that the snappees don’t realise it. A twiddly screen is very handy for that too.

Both the above cameras do good picture quality, compared to all other comparable cameras. Picture quality does matter to me, in the sense that I want the best picture quality I can get without lens swapping. The earlier versions of the two cameras mentioned above (the Canon SX30 and the Lumix FZ100) both seemed to embody the idea that if people like me got a twiddly screen and lots of zoom, we would be willing to relax on the picture quality front. Not so. We want all those features, but given all of them, we also want the best possible pictures that are compatible with all that, and what is more we are willing to pay quite a bit extra for that picture quality. Lots of us said this on the internet, about the SX30 and the FZ100, to the effect that we’d prefer better pictures and would be willing to pay extra for them, or, just as threateningly, that we would be prepared to wait for them, in the meantime making do with whatever cameras we already had. Canon and Panasonic have now responded accordingly. Good for them.

However, there are some quite significant differences between the Canon SX40 and the Lumix FZ150, and these differences mean that I cannot now decide which would, for me, be the best. This is where I would really appreciate whatever Samizdata commentariat input that commenters are willing and able to offer.

First, both have huge zoom lenses, but the Canon’s is (significantly?) huger. The Lumix is x24. The Canon is x35. I would be interested to learn, from anyone with an opinion on the subject, just how much difference there is between those two lenses. Would I, for instance, merely get a far distant London skyscraper a bit bigger, and a bit more detailed, with a x35 lens? Or would it feel more like twice as big, and twice as detailed. If the latter, then it’s the Canon for me.

Then there is the matter of “RAW”. The Lumix does this. The Canon does not. RAW files are uncompressed, and enable you to do a lot more post-production tinkering and improving, such as bringing out details hidden in shadow, but without turning the sky entirely white. All the Canon offers is JPG files, which are compressed, and less susceptible to later Photoshop-type tweaking. But would that really matter to me? I suspect that RAW is for the few-but-perfect-shots fraternity, rather than for me, a snap-early-snap-often photographer. Also RAW files are huge compared to JPGs, so I’d probably run out of card space if I used RAW a lot, and of hard disc space if I wanted to store all my RAWs. Plus, I’ve never been keen on post-production manipulation anyway, beyond a bit of cropping and sharpening, which only takes seconds. I suspect if I had the ability to take RAW pictures, all I would do would be to fret about whether to take RAWs or make do with JPGs, and not do any actual RAW processing. So, both cameras would be okay, including the Canon. But, comments? Was anybody reading this at first not attracted by RAW, but then got a camera which could do RAW, and found that RAW was great?

Finally, the Lumix is said to be quicker in things like focussing and rapid-fire shots. I imagine my current camera is probably much like the new Canon SX40 in this respect, and I do sometimes find myself shouting at it to get a move on. So for this, I say to myself: Lumix. Again, comments?

Best of all might be comments from people who have zeroed in on the exact same choice that I am now facing, and who have made their choice and can now report on it.

Maybe I should do what I did when pondering the Lumix FZ100 and the Canon SX30, namely wait for something better. Or, now, even better.

When it comes to digital cameras, there is nothing so wonderful as having the exact camera you want, and nothing sillier than spending a hundred and fifty quid less on a camera that is not what you really want. Nevertheless, all other things being approximately equal, price might decide this particular camera contest, for me. The Canon is significantly cheaper than the Lumix, so maybe, all other considerations having failed to tell me the winner, price will settle the decision in favour of the Canon.

I will end where I began, with a reference to the big bad world we are now living in, and are most of us worrying about living in. It may seem rather frivolous, on the day that the news channels are all now discussing the next big financial domino that is about to fall (Italy), to be writing here about digital cameras (although I note that Johnathan Pearce didn’t have any worries writing about wristwatches in an earlier posting today). But there is nevertheless a pertinent point to be made about the Big Picture that we are now facing so fearfully, based on choosing between things like digital cameras. The last few decades, we can now see, have offered us a major contrast, between the excellence of the arrangements that have cranked out digital cameras, and all the other brilliant toys we’ve lately been blessed with, and the non-excellence of the arrangements that have now given us … Italy. And I like to at least now hope that this contrast may be getting through to a wider audience, right about now. There does indeed seem to be quite widespread agreement, first, that the banking system is an unholy mess, but, second, that capitalism as a whole should not be done away with. If that’s what the public does feel, then I believe the public is getting two out of two.

Put it like this. When the Panasonic Lumix FZ100 had a huge zoom lens and a superb twiddly screen, and took pictures with great rapidity and great ease, but when these pictures turned out to be of a rather disappointing quality, nobody said that the government should step in to ensure better picture quality. We just yelled at Panasonic to do better, which they duly did. Panasonic, we shouted, you may be big, but you are not too big to fail. Make a better camera or we’ll go elsewhere, or just buy nothing at all. Panasonic duly made a better camera. Ditto Canon. And people like me can now choose which is the very best.

I trust that my point – which Perry de Havilland might want to refer to as my “meta-point” – is clear.

It’s far too late to prevent global financial catastrophe now. We are now living through Keynes’ long run. But after Keynes’ long run (and our present) has crashed down in ruins and has become our immediate past, then what? I like to at least hope that the lesson embodied in my previous paragraph but one might have been learned, in enough minds if not all, and in enough significant and influential minds, to make a significantly beneficial difference to our longer run.

What I would like would be a world in which we are all induced to take as much care choosing between banks – by being significantly rewarded if we do that and significantly punished if we don’t – as I am now able to take in choosing my next camera. I would like a world in which choosing between banks is choosing between different versions of really quite predictable excellence, rather than like choosing with a pin between different versions of … Italy. The camera-choice I am now enjoying says to me that the bank-choice I can only now dream of is at least a theoretical possibility.

16 comments to Which superzoom camera should I now buy?

  • HappyAcres

    I appreciated this piece.
    Sorry that I can’t directly address your questions.

    Birds and other wildlife are my subjects and the Canon SX210s at 14x zoom has been a blessing. It is a pocket camera.

    I’ve handled the SX40 at the store and though I really want the extra reach the weight around my neck would mean it would stay home on the shelf.

    Instead I crop afterwards. Shoot at 80 filmspeed to avoid grain.

  • Bryan Price

    I like my Panasonic DMC-TZ3 (not a superzoom, I know), and I decided to buy an Pentax D70. Great superzoom. Too bad it’s slow on focusing and taking a picture. I am really unhappy with the results I get out of that one. Which is why I’m still using the Panasonic for most of what I do.

    I may very well just donate the Pentax.

  • Ben

    “Lumix is x24. The Canon is x35”

    But how wide do they go? You need wide angles for a lot of group and interior shots.

    Given a choice between good-enough zoom, I would choose the one which went wider.

  • The Jannie

    Fuji HS20. Great handling, great quality, sensible AA batteries, wide angle, looong telephoto, ability to use external flash (always my deal-breaker),great price.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Brian, I cannot answer the technical questions you present, being the holder of a relatively ancient Canon digital camera. I have been thinking of getting an SLR digital camera, but this is not urgent.

    I like the way you seek to draw parallels between the fecundity and efficiency of the camera business world, and our state-deranged banking system. To take another example: the recent grief shown by people, especially the sort of young people demonstrating against Wall Street, following the death of Steve Jobs. When all is said and done, Jobs was a superlative capitalist (I am not remotely interested in some debate between geeks as to whether he was all that original in what he did.) The point is, that even the sort of folk we might regard as being anti-capitalist can be excited by inventors and capitalists who produce “cool” stuff like electronic gadgets, but are repelled by the actions of financial markets.

    Part of the problem, unfortunately, is that people can grasp the usefulness of a thing such as a camera, however scientifically advanced, but they struggle to grasp, say, the benefits of having those much-maligned people called speculators. Even if the world adopted complete free market banking tomorrow, with hard money and the rest taking its place, there will still be a need for modern capital markets and speculators. And unless something is done to address the ignorance and hostility towards those things, then this kind of split attitude towards economic achievements will continue.

    One more point: occasionally it is nice to write about something because it is, well, interesting, whether it be the amazing new gadgets we have around us, fabulous watches, new films or the latest rugby game. Part of what the “libertarian meta-context” is all about is saying: “It does not have to be about abstract ideas and politics. It really doesn’t.”

  • RAB

    I’m well interested in this, as my Lumix DMC TZ5 has just gone tits up. The lens won’t retract or focus, so a new camera is definately on the xmas list.

    Up until its breakdown I have been very happy with TZ5. The quality of pictures it takes has been first class as several commentors here can attest, as I send some of our snaps via email. It is only x10 zoom, but fine for most situations, and the quality of the lens, being Leica, is always a deal clincher for me.

    So at the moment I tend to favour the Lumix over the Canon, extra zoom or not. Jannie has mentioned the Fuji HS 20, I saw that being pushed on one of the shopping channels a while back, and it did look very impressive indeed. So I await further comments with great interest.

  • Richard Thomas

    I am not remotely interested in some debate between geeks as to whether he was all that original in what he did.

    Jonathan, I understand why you feel this way but it may be an important debate (or rather discovery of facts) for free-marketers for exactly the reason you said.

    The general impulse at the moment seems to be to laud the “people who do and make things” and demonize the managers and middlemen. Jobs, really, was a quintessential manager and middleman and to recognize him as such helps to illustrate the value that such people do actually bring to the table.

  • Brian,
    I don’t wish to annoy you but I come to this party as an SLR (actually SLT – Sony Alpha 55 user).

    Now that is a great camera but I appreciate not the camera you are looking for. This is how I got it (and the faffy lenses and all). I am a very keen amateur shutterbug and I’d come into some sponds so I had a grand+ burning a hole in my bank account. So I only really looked at DSLRs and DSLTs but subsequently I made a dig around the superzoom “bridge cameras”. Now unsurprisingly the gap in the market between itty-bitty cameras and DSLR is much like the gap in computers. There is excellent value to be had in the mid-market.

    Essentially I’m saying you analysis of the camera market is excellent (and your further points abstracted from that are well noted – I mean if the NHS could operate with like our consumer electronics businesses nobody would ever die!).

    Now I apologize in advance but the “bridge” cameras that caught my attention about a year ago (when I got the Sony) were the very high frame-rate Casio Exilims. Not that I want to confuse you further but… Anyway, how can I put this? Either the Canon or the Lumix will do you very nicely.

    Personally I’m a big one for ergonomics (including as you mention “boot-up” time). Now let’s be honest here. My Sony is a much better camera than my old Kodak but the Kodak is easier to use. Example: When shooting manual with the Sony there is a wheel to adjust the shutter but to adjust the aperture I have to press a button and use the wheel. With the Kodak I just press the wheel and turn it. Neat!

    A couple of months before I bought the Sony I was mooching around Camera shops and I was shown by a bloke in Jessops a Nikon or something with a “twiddly” screen. He was of the opinion that he had no idea what anyone would use it for. I wasn’t. I got it (for exactly the same reasons you outlined) immediately. My Sony does have a twiddly screen. Not least of the advantages of that is you can close it up so it doesn’t get scratched.

    Now the Sony is feature-rich compared to an equivalent (or indeed more expensive) Canon or Nikon DSLR. This is what I really like about it: 10fps shooting (it sounds like a Maxim gun), very fast autofocus, great video, sweep panoramas (I love that). I know you don’t want an SLR/SLT but “bridge” cameras tend to have such features. They are worth considering and as far as I’m concerned probably more important than MPs or zooms.

    Anyhow Brian, those are two excellent cameras and whichever you get I look forward to seeing your photographs in the future. I like your “gonzo style”!

    Just one thing. The best accessory I ever got was a Joby Gorillapod. Check ’em out.

  • Johnathan

    Richard, a fair point, but…..

    Steve Jobs was a lot more than a middleman and manager. His design ideas were crucial although he worked with others to bring them to market. Much of the reason that folk respected him was that they felt that he had a big part in the actual design.

  • I am always a canon fan!

  • Andrew

    Not convinced superzooms are a reasonable buy, because lenses of such complexity at “consumer prices” are always going to break sooner or later (often sooner, as in just past the 12 month warranty). You then can’t fix them easily, because the lens itself isn’t separately replaceable.

    This isn’t necessarily a pro-slr argument, as there are mirrorless models with changeable lenses. These inbetween cameras also come with benefit of being much smaller and light, and also have larger sensors than superzoomes, which usually means better quality (especially in low light).

  • Fiend's Brave Victim

    You should seriously consider avoiding them both and getting micro four thirds setup. They’re almost the same size, have a MUCH bigger sensor and way better image quality, DSLR focus speed, good low light performance, proper flash capabilities, and very good interchangeable lenses. They beat the superzooms by a million miles.

  • pete

    I can’t be bothered much with cameras.

    Looking at the pictures later is a bit boring if its only scenery and the like.

    The odd snap of family and friends and pets every so often is OK, especially of children, kittens etc, and such pics can be taken with a cheap camera.

    Good quality photography of mountains, nature is easily available from other sources.

  • Jim

    A year ago, we encountered this quandary on behalf of a kid, who’d outgrown her pocket Lumix and was intent on a Nikon D90 with all the trimmings. Well, she can’t afford that – bottom line – and even if we bought her the ‘first chunk’ (we can’t afford that), the lenses would do her in. So we shopped the market.

    I was appalled by all of the one-piece DSLR’s; slow, tiny controls, gritty focus, dull image in the viewfinder – some of them didn’t even take a filter, and (from personal experience) a thumbprint on a lens that small WILL ruin a whole lot of irreplaceable vacation shots, and if you walk into something, a filter is a lot cheaper to replace than the front element – until I tried the Lumix FZ35; it stood head ‘n shoulders above everything else on the market. Except it was only 18:1 zoom, so we didn’t buy it.

    A week later we came-upon the then-new-on-the-market FZ40, with 24:1 zoom, bought it on the spot, and the kid is ravingly enthused with it. Whatever you buy, be sure to check-out the newest Lumix.

  • ErisGuy

    I have a Nikon camera roughly equivalent to the Canon you’re considering.

    o – You will not be able steadily to hold a camera using the 35x zoom (approximately 800mm equivalent). You’ll need a solid surface or a tripod.

    o – Unless you’re planning (someday) to “develop” RAW images in Aperture or Lightroom or some such, JPEG is ok. Most RAW shots look okay with default “development” in photo management software, but occupy vastly more disk space. (That is, with RAW I can shoot about 400 photos on my DLSR. On the Nikon 35x, I can shoot thousands on the same memory cards.) If you shoot thousands of RAW photos, you will need another hard drive.

    o – I shoot with a real 400mm lens on a DSLR and with the 35x zoom. The 35x zoom gets in much closer. Amateurs can’t tell the difference between the 35x JPEGs and the 550mm (400 + 1.4 teleconverter) shots when both reduced for the web. IIRC, the Nikon has a 12 mega-pixel resolution, better than my DSLR which is 10. (Compressed as JPEG the actual file size is a couple of megabytes.)

    o – 35x allows you be far enough away from most wildlife that they aren’t disturbed when you take the shot. (This probably applies to demonstrators, too.)

    o – My Nikon (and probably the Canon) also shoots 720p movies in a variety of speeds from 60 frames a second (IIRC) to 1 frame every few seconds (IIRC).

    o – My Nikon (and probably the Canon) also allows for timed shots; e.g., take 1 picture every 5 minutes.

    o – My Nikon (and probably the Canon) have almost as much control over a shot as a DLSR, or a dozen or so pre-programmed settings.

    In short the super zoom I own is versatile, but it won’t replace my DSLR and I don’t carry it as often as I carry my cell phone (which has a poor camera by comparison). I can take beautiful photos (and short movies) with little preparation over an incredible variety of situations, including some distance.

  • Petro

    I’m an amateur photographer and a professional geek.

    I get the whole “I don’t want to change lenses” thing. Right now I only have 3 lenses, and they don’t overlap. (I’m a geek, but I’m a cheap geek).

    Given the stuff I care about, and the choices you presented, they’re pretty much equal. I’ve had (and still have) some Panasonic point and shoots and they were outstanding, at least until my wife dropped them/it on it’s lens.

    Canon, well, there isn’t a better brand in that space.

    Nikon has the Coolpix P500, which is almost feature compatible with the other two, with the exception of a “tilt” screen rather than a “fully articulated and a slightly “darker” lens at F3.4 v.s. F2.7/2.8 (this is a measurement of how much light the lens passes (no, it’s not, but it’s close enough for this discussion) and lower is better).

    If those were the two I had to pick from, well, I’d be buggered if I could give one a clear victory.

    That said, those aren’t cameras I’d pick for anything. They’re too big to fit in a pocket, the sensors are too small to work as well as a four-thirds or an APS-C (photography is inherently about how much light you collect. Smaller Sensor (all things equal) means less light).

    But it ain’t me, that’s why there’s a quintillion choices.

    Good luck with whatever your choice is.