Best 'bridge' camera?

[MKH9130]

I'm looking to move up from a simple Point and Click, and would like something to give me a little extra flexibility over my current camera.

I've had film SLR's before, but don't really want to go down the dSLR route (yet). Looking to step up to a bridge for a year or 18 months first.

Found the following cameras that are in my price range.

Fujifilm S6500FD (£152 on Amazon with a £17.99 3 year warranty)
Fujifilm S9600 (£226 on Amazon with an £18.99 3 year warranty)
Canon S5IS (£235 on Amazon with £18.99 3 year warranty)

Anyone have any comments on these? I have seen some excellent shots in the Maldives on here taken with the S6500.

Lastly, will something along the lines of this (cheap!) lens adaptor kit from Ebay be absolutely rubbish, or worth a shot?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...

I know the difference in capabilities between a fully fledged dSLR and one of these... but at the moment these will be best for me.

Thanks guys.

Edited by MKH9130 on Monday 8th October 09:45

[GravelBen]

I've got an older Fuji S5500 which has been a good all-rounder, and the newer better Fujis seem to be a good step up from it for image quality etc.

My next upgrade is going be a dSLR, but if I was looking for another bridge camera I think I'd also take a good look at the Panasonic cameras, they have less of the SLR-style look/feel the Fujis have but plenty of good bits including Leica lenses in some of them. I haven't used one to know how user-friendly the controls are though, or manual settings etc.

[scotty328i]

I have an fuji s6500 excellent shots with good colour - That would be my choice

examples ...

Edited by scotty328i on Monday 8th October 13:49

[john185k]

I have an S6500 also, these were taken with it...

[VEX]

I have an even earlier S3500 and it got great results in the Galapogos.

Now I have money again, I am about to up grade to a dSLR in the new year.

[LongQ]

I have a Canon S3 IS which I like a lot.

The S5 adds quite lot to the spec though uses the same lens afaik.

Most of the changes in spec are big pluses from what I have read but so far I have not tried an S5.

What sort of subjects are you most interested in? If I have something relevant to type I'll post the examples but the higher pixel count on the S5 sensor probably makes it a bit pointless to do so. The sample files on the Canon web site may be more use to you.

Edited by LongQ on Tuesday 9th October 01:55

[fluffnik]

I bought an S9600 as an upgrade from the S5600.

I like it lots.

As I'm in a wheelchair, varying shooting height is a pain so the tilting VF of the S9600 is a real boon - it's the main reason I discounted the S6500fd and its newer sensor and processor.

I also have the Fuji WL-FXS6 x0.8 auxiliary lens which seems pretty good @£84.

I bought some no-name wide and tele lenses for the S5600 but they were shoite, bought the Fuji ones and they were great (wide) and fine (tele).

Only got a few highly squashed examples online at the moment here with a little messing from RAW (~18-19MB), quite a few with the aux wide, and here just shrunk from the HQ camera jpegs (~4.5-5MB).

I've only had the S9600 about six weeks and not got anywhere near exploiting all its versatility - I think it'll keep me amused for quite a while.

[plug]There are some of my S5600 shots in the competition chat
thread.[/plug]