Africa Wild

Thank you so much for that succinct info, smithsonian! Much appreciated, now I also understand!



These other snobbiots are far too clever for their own good, IMO!

Richprins - a good anology for a bridge camera is a P&S on steroids - the Nikon P900 bridge camera has an 83x optical zoom- that's like a 2000mm in 35mm terms! But even so, the image quality will not be as good as a DSLR.


I think this article best sums up the differences: http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/dslr ... ge-camera/

But is it better to use manual zoom, say 200mm on my Fujifilm, or take a slightly less manually zoomed pic and digitally zoom later on the PC, with more light then, if that makes sense?

The latter seems to work better for me?

Most modern fixed-lens cameras have two types of zoom, namely optical and digital.

Optical zoom is a process of mechanically shifting elements in the lens.
Digital zoom is exactly the same as "cropping" the photo afterwards, The camera is effectively cutting away parts of the image.

This process quickly degrades potential image quality. It's fine (up to a point) if the image will only be used in a small format anyway, but not ideal if you had dreams of printing it big and sticking it on your wall.

Don't want johnny-come-lately advice. Trust smithsonian only!

Peter gave some very useful additional information, at least for me. I'll stick to the bridge camera anyway as I only take photos in order to keep treasured memories and proof shots

to both

Peter can't even use his camera to scan a pic in a magazine!

Listen who is talking

smithsonian and Peter, please excuse our resident baboon. He means well, but sometimes lacks the social skills of his human counterparts.

We need the antics of resident animals Flutterby - even baboons - to add a bit of spice to the posts!

Agree with Peter - try and keep away from the digital zoom - rather shoot with optical zoom only and crop later if you need to or keep the image as a landscape. Once you take the shot with the digital zoom the quality is set and you cannot undo it.