Compact Cameras

[Cliff Jensen]

Has anyone found any "compact" camera that will come anywhere close to taking a decent telephoto image of a bird? If I can't carry it in my pocket I am not interested and will carry my regular Nikon DSLR gear. I'm not looking for a replacement, just something to have as a secondary camera.

[Roy Churchill]

Cliff, I have just bought a little Canon SX40 (only weighs 600 g but you would need a big pocket I guess). I have only been out a couple of times with it but am well impressed up to now, the zoom goes up to 840mm (full frame equivalent) and has a 4.5 stop IS sytem which makes hand holding at full zoom easy. When you consider that the sensor has 12mp crammed onto a sensor that is less than 1/4 inch on the longest side the ISO performance is remarkable. The first two Swallow shot were hand held at full zoom and ISO 800, the other shots are all full zoom and hand held also. Not up to DSLR quality of course but a handy little Camera non the less.

[Roger Clark]

Hi Cliff
If you want "decent" telephoto range, it probably will not fit in your pocket, unless your pocket is quite large. I recently searched for a compact that had a good telephoto range. Requirements included recording raw, and that drastically narrowed the field. Try, for example, at B&H you can restrict the search and see what cameras remain. I required 700 mm equivalent telephoto, raw, and at least 12 megapixels. There were only 3 or 4 choices. I got a Fuji HS30exr. Nice camera and the images are quite good for the price.

Roger

[Roy Churchill]

BTW I forgot to mention that although the SX40 does not have RAW in its spec's it does shoot RAW no problem as well as superfine jpeg and a host of other goodies via CHDK which is a free download and works flawlessly.

[Cliff Jensen]

Thanks Roy - I was wondering about RAW. I find the detail in your photos more than adequate for my needs, however the physical size of the camera is larger than what I am hoping for. I carry a Canon S100 with me which is great for landscapes, etc., but just does't hack it for my bird photos.

[Elliotte Rusty Harold]

Wow. Those SX40 pictures are stunning, way better than anything I've ever gotten with a point-and-shoot.

How do you find autofocus performance on this camera? That's always been the downfall of point-and-shoots for me.

[John Chardine]

Hi Cliff- I too am impressed with the images made by Roy.

However, I think what you wish for may just not exist. If you need reach, you need focal length, and ignoring lens formulae, diffractive optics etc, the focal lens of a lens is inextricably tied up with it's physical length, and thus size.

[Richard Stern]

The Panasonic Travel Zoom series, of which the latest and probably best is the ZS20 (? called the TZ30 in Europe) is no dSLR, but it fits in a small pocket, zooms out to 485mm. equivalent (or more with some fancy crop/ interpolation stuff which probably isn't any advantage), and produces remarkably good jpegs. There's no raw. There are lots of custom options, including, P,A,M etc, great burst speed, and high quality video. For bird "record shots" and other general photography it works well, as long as you realize it's no dSLR.

I had an SX-40HS, but I found I didn't have a pocket that was big enough, I didn't enjoy using the rather dim LCD, and for some reason I could never get high quality pictures, so I sold it in part exchange for the ZS20.

Richard