Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Camera Gear, How-To, Questions
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Peabody
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by Peabody » March 18th, 2016, 4:23 pm

adamschneider wrote:I'm not suddenly gonna run out and buy a P900, but wow.
Sure ya can. You just have to put your mind to it. Using a process helps with that. Here's one I've honed over the years. Feel free to tweak it to suit your own circumstances.

Step 1 - See a Kickassingly Cool Gizmo on the internet.

Step 2 - Justify a need for the KCG.

Step 3 - Point your browser to Amazon.com and make the purchase using your Prime membership.

(Steps 1-3 can be accomplished in under 7 minutes)

Step 4 - Fantasize for the next two days how the KCG is going to make your life so much better.

Step 5 - When package containing KCG arrives share your excitement with Mrs. P

Step 6 - Explain step 2 & 4 to a skeptical Mrs. P

Step 7 - Explain to an increasing skeptical Mrs. P that you won the OregonHikers.org "Post of the week" contest and the KCG didn't cost a dime.

Step 8 - Open package containing KCG

Step 9 - Wince when Mrs. P says she forgot to mention she won the Bachelorette "Viewer of the week" contest and is heading to NW 23rd to spend her winnings.

Step 10 - Setup KCG in peace and quiet.

Step 11 - Take an off center, slightly blurry picture of the moon knowing you'll get better once you read the directions and practice a little.

Step 12 - Put item away.

Step 13 - Lose interest.

Step 14 - See a Kickassingly Cool Gizmo on the internet.
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White

hikingette
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by hikingette » March 19th, 2016, 9:00 am

if my calculations are correct, for a 16MP camera zoomed to fill the frame with the moon, a 1/10 second exposure would have 4 pixels of motion blur.

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Guy
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by Guy » March 27th, 2016, 7:46 pm

So played around with my Sony HX400 today. All photos taken from the same spot on Atwood road above Catherine Creek. All photos are hand held.

Image

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Image
hiking log & photos.
Ad monte summa aut mors

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adamschneider
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by adamschneider » March 27th, 2016, 8:57 pm

Guy wrote:So played around with my Sony HX400 today. All photos taken from the same spot on Atwood road above Catherine Creek. All photos are hand held.
Interesting that the last photo doesn't really show any more detail than the second-to-last one. Did you use Digital Zoom at all?

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Guy
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by Guy » March 28th, 2016, 6:40 am

adamschneider wrote:
Guy wrote:So played around with my Sony HX400 today. All photos taken from the same spot on Atwood road above Catherine Creek. All photos are hand held.
Interesting that the last photo doesn't really show any more detail than the second-to-last one. Did you use Digital Zoom at all?
Digital Zoom kicked in on the last shot for sure, maybe the one before too.
hiking log & photos.
Ad monte summa aut mors

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adamschneider
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by adamschneider » March 31st, 2016, 11:18 am

Inspired by Guy's example, yesterday I took some sample "Lyle" photos with my friend's Sony DSC-HX50V; I was on the Rowena Plateau, 1.44 miles from the Lyle sign (which is about 35 feet wide). The first one is just to show the context, and the next three are the actual pixels (with a little contrast adjustment) at three zoom levels: as wide as possible, somewhere in the middle, and full zoom. As expected, the image quality isn't as good as my Canon G12, but obviously there are trade-offs.

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Peabody
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by Peabody » April 9th, 2016, 1:15 pm

After reading this thread I just had to go out and pick up a Nikon Coolpix P900. When it arrived I was more excited than a girl meeting a sloth. Still figuring the camera out but here's my Lyle sign test. These pics are from the Memaloose overlook, 3.75 miles :o from the Lyle sign.

1x ish
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middle ish
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83x optical
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83x with 4x digital
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Catherine Creek parking lot. 1.25 miles 83x plus 4x digital
Image
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White

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adamschneider
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by adamschneider » April 9th, 2016, 3:21 pm

Peabody wrote:Catherine Creek parking lot. 1.25 miles 83x plus 4x digital
:o

That is way more impressive than the Lyle sign. You can ALMOST read the license plates!

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Peabody
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by Peabody » April 17th, 2016, 9:42 am

Love the super zoom! Couple more from this weekend.

I need a better tripod :lol:
https://youtu.be/On1AgZ9Dt7w

Handheld - Image was uploaded straight from camera, no processing.
Image
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White

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SWriverstone
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Re: Buying a new Superzoom camera—any recommendations?

Post by SWriverstone » May 3rd, 2016, 6:35 pm

Just catching up here. First, a question: Who the heck is Lyle? And why does he get a sign on a random hillside? :lol:

Secondly, holy sh_t! These superzooms are insane now. I thought my Canon PowerShot S2 was amazing all those years ago—at a mere 12x optical zoom.

But these examples just underscore what I've always known: having that kind of range in a single lens just rules (IMO) because it gives you SO many options when shooting. I mean, even if you never went beyond 30-40x optical zoom, the possibilities are limitless for framing of subjects from near to ridiculously far.

To put it differently, I feel like having a zoom range like this, in a sense, is like shooting video in 4K (or even 8K)...because in any given scene you take in with the naked eye, there are literally thousands of possible unique, different shots you can get without moving your feet at all.

The other thing I love is the microscopically narrow depth of field you get at those zoom ranges—which I just love (blurred background? No sweat!)

You can also get some spectacular "compression" shots, with hills or mountains compressed together at long zoom lengths.

Don't get me wrong—I'm old enough to have "zoomed with my feet" back in the day when I shot on 35mm film with only a single 50mm SLR lens. And I appreciate the artistry involved in using a fixed lens like that. But I'll still take the "Zoom to the Moon" any day over that! :mrgreen:

And for wildlife photography, forget it—cameras like the P900 pretty much annihilate even (much cleaner but far less powerful) $10,000 big prime zooms often used by "serious" photographers on monopods. In fact I'll even go so far as to say if you're a wildlife photographer and DON'T have one of these cameras, you're seriously limiting yourself for no good reason.

Scott

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