Bridge?

[IanMorewood]

Our six year old has a passion for pictures and has pretty much grown out of his Fuji310 point and click but is a little small for an SLR. So we are thinking about a bridge camera for Crimbo for him. Does anyone have any suggestions, sub £200, decent lens, shoot video and have the abilty to go manual settings when he gets a bit more techie.

[MysteryLemon]

What has he outgrown about the compact?

For an adult I would suggest a DSLR no matter how much you want a bridge. A bridge is basically a compact that looks like a DSLR, usually with some stupidly long and unusable lens. They may fill the gap for a short while but you will outgrow it in no time if youre looking to take photography seriously. There doesn't need to be a step from compact to DSLR. Youre going to end up with a DSLR anyway so just buy it and stop holding back... Theyre not complicated to use.

For a child. I dont know. What is it about a DSLR you think he wont be able to handle? The interchangable lenses? The controls? All DSLRs still have an auto setting. Why not buy a second hand older DSLR. Something like a Nikon D50? Something with all the functions but not going to matter so much if it ends up getting dropped.

Or how about a higher end compact? Something like a Lumix LX-3 is still a lovely bit of kit and still has all the manual functions you could ask for.

[IanMorewood]

Simple answer to why not a SLR, I dont want him swinging my nikor glass about without close supervision. A bridge gives him the opton to zoom about far more than the 3x that the compact does

[rottie102]

IanMorewood said:

Simple answer to why not a SLR, I dont want him swinging my nikor glass about without close supervision. A bridge gives him the opton to zoom about far more than the 3x that the compact does

You do realise that there are very good compacts with 20x zoom?
Like:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-TZ40EB...