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Monday, 7 August 2023

Bridge camera revival ? Could this be the new best camera type ?

 

FZ1000.2 Multi shot panorama stitched in Camera Raw


Let us have a look at the main camera types in use today with a summary of their strengths and weaknesses.

Smartphone

The great majority of photos are taken on smartphone cameras which are entirely adequate or even in higher end models well in excess of many users requirements.

Smartphone photography is mostly fully automatic, point-and-touch style. Smartphone photo files are usually fully processed in-device and are easily shared with  other devices.

Smartphones lack a single, all purpose wide-to-telephoto superzoom lens, an eye level electronic viewfinder, an articulated screen, a handle and thumb rest and a suite of controls by which the user can decide what settings the device will use. Most also do not provide RAW files which can be downloaded to another device for post processing in photo software. The whole point of smartphone photography is that no such post-processing is required, and that works just fine for most types of casual photography.  This is the 21st Century version of Kodak’s 20th Century business model  “you press the button, we do the rest”.

Small compact with superzoom lens

These little wonders look like any other small compact camera but they have a triple extension 30x superzoom lens which emerges like magic at the touch of a lever.  

Unfortunately these things are built down to a price and are considerably less impressive in practice than the specifications might lead you to hope.

That lens has a very small aperture and is of mediocre optical quality and focus speed.  The sensor is the tiny 7.67mm diagonal mini-sensor type with too many pixels and poor image quality with bucket loads of digital noise.

Having owned and used several of these from Panasonic and Sony I no longer recommend any of them.

FZ1000.2  Bridge cams are good for this kind of photo with things happening everywhere all at once.

Mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (MILC)

The MILC has superseded the DSLR as the dominant interchangeable lens camera type. MILCs range in price and capability from low-end entry level to high grade professional bodies and lenses. Perusal of a catalogue would suggest there is something here for everybody. And there is, but with just one limitation which is zoom range and aperture.  

The three bridge cams which I currently recommend have the following lens specifications:

Panasonic Lumix FZ1000.2,  25-400mm (equivalent) f2.8-4, 16x.

Panasonic Lumix FZ300, 25-600mm (equivalent) f2.8 at all focal lengths, 24x.

Sony RX10.4, 24-600mm (equivalent) f2.4-4, 25x.

The superzoom lenses on bridge cameras are compact and have a wide aperture (small f stop) because they are built into the body of the camera, they are of retracting type and the sensors behind them are smaller than those in any MILC system.

MILCs use sensors with a diagonal of 21.5mm (micro four thirds, M43), 27 or 28mm (APSC), 43mm (full frame, 35mm), or 55mm (small medium format).

We can buy superzoom lenses for M43 and APSC sensor cameras but they always have a smaller zoom range, smaller aperture or larger size, or all three of these characteristics than typical lenses on bridge cameras with no apparent improvement in image quality or usability. In addition a MILC plus superzoom lens will cost more than a bridge cam.

FZ1000.2 The kookaburra has his eye on someone's picnic


Bridge cameras

For me a bridge cam is a proper camera which looks and operates just like a mid range MILC except it has a built in powered superzoom lens and a smaller sensor size. Good bridge cams have the full works: MILC style design, ergonomic handle and thumb support, EVF over the lens axis, fully articulated touch screen, front and rear control dials and a full set of controls for the expert/enthusiast user. The better bridge cams are fast and responsive with very good image quality, ergonomics and performance.

 Why are bridge cams more appealing this year then last year ?

Nothing to do with the cameras, it’s all about the increasing number of AI features in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop which are now a great deal more numerous and sophisticated than we can find in DXO Prime or Topaz denoise.  Adobe denoise AI is the headline feature but there are now many others. For instance the small sensors in bridge cams make it difficult to render backgrounds softly out of focus. Now we can select the background with a level of accuracy not previously possible and apply adjustments to render it soft and smooth looking, while leaving the subject sharp.

Why did bridge cams fall out of favour with buyers and/or camera makers ?

I suspect the process has been driven mainly by camera makers rather than users although that is just my as-yet-unproven hypothesis. Posts about bridge cams have rated the greatest number of page views on this blog for many years, so I know there is a steady user group although I have no way to estimate the size of that group.

Fujifilm’s camera business consisted mainly of compacts and bridge cams until 2012 when the corporation made an executive decision to abandon all that and move into MILCs.  I don’t know why they made such a wholesale change so I have to guess. And that guess would be that they wanted to differentiate their cameras from smartphones to the greatest extent possible. And I guess the same consideration would have been exercising the minds of product development people at the other camera makers.

But I think they have almost abandoned a potentially very viable camera type (bridge cams) along with the no-longer-viable small compact cam genre.

Can camera makers re-invigorate the bridge cam genre ?

They sure can. There are many improvements which they could make to  autofocus, data handling, image processing and performance using technologies which the camera makers already have in their box of  technologies. Nothing new needs to be developed, they just need the will to incorporate the good new tech into updated versions of existing bridge cams.



What about image quality ?

This is where the discussion gets interesting.

Does my Canon EOS R5 make better pictures than my Panasonic Lumix FZ1000.2 ?  On the metrics yes of course. Look at DXO Mark or Photonstophotos scores. Photograph highly detailed test charts in controlled conditions. No contest, on these technical measures the R5 is better.

But is that the right  question to ask ?  I think not.

I guesstimate that 99% of people who look at a photograph either printed or on a screen engage mentally with the subject as a gestalt. They do not scrutinise the details with a magnifying glass. They do not pixel peep. They are not concerned about  technical minutiae.

Here is the awful secret about modern digital cameras: Many of them can deliver more  image quality and performance than we need for most purposes.

Professional photographers have specific requirements which can in some situations make the latest hi-tech gear a practical tool of trade and worth the investment. But most enthusiast and amateur photographers can meet their requirements with much more compact, less expensive gear.

I spent many years in the middle and latter part of the 20th Century taking photos with 35mm SLR film cameras, using various different types of color and black&white film.    So I am very familiar with the level of image quality which this type of equipment can deliver. And I rate my little Panasonic Lumix FZ300 bridge camera as being able to routinely deliver a level of image quality about the same as that which I got from 35mm film behind a good quality prime lens on a 35mm SLR camera.

Now with the latest AI post processing we can now obtain considerably better output from the FZ300 than we could ever get with 35mm film especially in low light with high ISO sensitivity.

Nobody in the camera business wants us consumers to know this. They do not want us to discover that those super hi-pixel, hi-performance cameras being presented for our excited purchase, are really a waste of money in the sense that they deliver more image quality and more performance (like 40 still frames per second)  than we need.

My ideal camera

This is a bridge style camera about the size, shape, style and lens of the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000.2 but with an updated set of controls including a thumb actuated joystick. The Canon EOS R6.2 has an efficient control layout which would be worth copying.

This camera has two distinct operating modes.

In Auto Mode it works like a smartphone cam, using a Snapdragon or similar processor to produce HEIF files or similar which have been fully processed in camera. This is the “You press the button, we do the rest” mode.  Most of the buttons and dials on the camera body are disabled and Menu options are limited.

In Control Mode it works like a modern proper camera to produce Raw files for post processing in separate imaging software. The user has full control over the image capture process and all camera settings via Menus and camera modules such as  dials and buttons.

This gives us the best of both worlds.

Will any camera maker do it ?

I don’t understand why they have not already done it. Such a camera could be extremely popular with a large body of photographers from beginners up to enthusiast/expert level and some professionals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 comment:

  1. Love this idea! I wish one of the classic camera makers (Canon / Nikon / Panasonic) would offer something new in the bridge camera space. I think there is the consumer demand to support it. I think 20x optical zoom plus 1 inch sensor with the auto and control mode you mentioned would be amazing.

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