Talk me into a Bridge Camera

[NormalWisdom]

I have fallen out of love with SLR photography.
I have about £4000 of kit which I wish to exchange for a quality Bridge camera.
The bridge camera need to have fast focus, long zoom (at least 20x), rapid at least 15fps on the camera at least 20mp, and ability to shoot 4k video.
What are my options?

I plugged the above into AI and it recommends the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 IV.

Looks superb, fits all the asks but is almost 10 years old and it seems Sony aren't looking to bring out an upgrade.

I've looked at the Nikon p1100 etc and others but the 1/2 inch sensor is not good enough for low-light stuff.

What other options are out there?

[djsmith74]

What is it about SLR that you have fallen out of love with? If it’s size and lugging kit around, then I’d be looking at mirrorless with a couple of lenses, as I think you’d struggle to get a bridge camera with the latest tech, that ticks all boxes.

[NormalWisdom]

djsmith74 said:

What is it about SLR that you have fallen out of love with?

Good question, I am not sure why, need to do some naval gazing on that, might help me choose which way to go.

I currently have 2x D7500, 200-500, 70-210, 105, 18-60 and a couple of other lenses - Might well be the lugging kit around problem!!

djsmith74 said:

I d be looking at mirrorless with a couple of lenses, a

After I posted this, I started looking at the Sony A7 with 24-240 and 200-400, Liking the look of that a lot.

[JonnyWhitters]

I switched from a D7200 to a Z6 and then a Z8 and haven’t looked back. The dynamic range and ability to crop without sacrificing too much image quality has been a game changer, let alone the autofocus performance and EVF showing the changes in real time.

I have largely whittled my kit down to 24-120 F4 and the 70-200 F2.8 and find there’s not too much that I want to shoot outside of those ranges.

Worth picking up a mirrorless and getting a feel for it before making your final decision. An FTZ adapter will also allow some of your fave lenses to remain and be useful on your new set up if you stayed with Nikon.

[isaldiri]

i have a sony rx10 mk iv as a 'lighter' handy camera if i'm lazy to lug my usual full frame mirrorless job - it's an excellent bit of kit with unusually good autofocus (i use it for shooting birds in flight) BUT..... the picture quality is just not really close to being as good as what you will get from a full frame or even APS-C as the sensor size is just that much smaller. it's very good - for what it is but equally you need to realistic about what you might be getting vs your existing DSLR depending on what it's used for.

[bcr5784]

isaldiri said:

i have a sony rx10 mk iv as a 'lighter' handy camera if i'm lazy to lug my usual full frame mirrorless job - it's an excellent bit of kit with unusually good autofocus (i use it for shooting birds in flight) BUT..... the picture quality is just not really close to being as good as what you will get from a full frame or even APS-C as the sensor size is just that much smaller. it's very good - for what it is but equally you need to realistic about what you might be getting vs your existing DSLR depending on what it's used for.

I'd second that. I bought a Canon R7 to replace my RX10 iv, thinking I'd sell it. However the RX10 is so versatile that I keep it around the house knowing that if I need to take something quickly it will almost certainly do the job. The lens is truly remarkable and the fact that F4 is maintained to 600mm goes quite way to offset the poorer high iso noise. Sure the Canon is ultimately better, but to put that in context, I can normally post process the raw Sony images to match or better the Canon jpegs. Process the Canon raw files and advantage is reversed, of course.

Edited by bcr5784 on Wednesday 3rd June 17:16

[Derek Smith]

I've used bridge cameras for publishing in a magazine. It proved perfectly adequate, and I've had a few full page, that's A4, and a couple of covers. In use it was convenient. I would push the camera under cars and take shots on wide angle, and would use the full zoom when taking shots of racing cars on circuit.

A friend has a Nikon bridge with a 900mm(?) max lens and whenever there's a full or blood moon, or a quarter moon that shows the crater mountains, I get an images sent to me. They are very good quality (but boring after the first hundred or so.) The current one goes from 24-3000mm. Such a lens on FF would require a lorry to support.

They are cheap second hand. My needs changed, but I'd be happy to return to a quality bridge if I return to what I used to photograph.

[NormalWisdom]

isaldiri said:

i have a sony rx10 mk iv as a 'lighter' handy camera if i'm lazy to lug my usual full frame mirrorless job - it's an excellent bit of kit with unusually good autofocus (i use it for shooting birds in flight) BUT..... the picture quality is just not really close to being as good as what you will get from a full frame or even APS-C as the sensor size is just that much smaller. it's very good - for what it is but equally you need to realistic about what you might be getting vs your existing DSLR depending on what it's used for.

Just when I thought I was going the mirrorless route and you wrote that!!


Some really interesting and useful perspectives - Thanks

[ehasler]

I was toying with the idea of getting a bridge camera to take to Le Mans, as I'm leaving my full-frame kit at home this year. In the end I've decided to buy a new lens for my Sony ZV-E10 II. The Sigma 16-300 gives a 35mm equivalent of 24-450mm and with the tiny ZV-E10 is small enough to stuff in my backpack along with jacket and a ham and cheese baguette! Or if I fit the 16-50 Sony PZ lens it's small enough to stuff in a coat pocket, but still give decent quality with the APC sensor.

[sgrimshaw]

I love my RX10 M3, but you should be aware .... the RX10 is a seriously chunky piece of kit.

[DibblyDobbler]

I do most of my (very casual these days) photography with an RX10iv - there are a huge number of sample shots on this thread on Talk Photography - only you can say whether the quality is good enough for you but you should be able to judge what is possible

[DibblyDobbler]

Here's a few RX10iv shots from my Flickr - in good light you can get some decent results IMHO


Linlithgow Palace by Mike Smith, on Flickr


Down the Hatch! by Mike Smith, on Flickr


Honey Bee by Mike Smith, on Flickr


Little Grebe by Mike Smith, on Flickr


The Forth Bridge by Mike Smith, on Flickr