First shot with my LUMIX

[Elliot87]

The P900 is on my list to check as soon as they become available again

Hi Mike,

How would you say the FZ72 and the P610 rate up against each other? Pros and cons etc. Although I love my Nikons I'm not all that brand loyal and so would look at getting the best one to suit my needs, regardless of make. I'd even consider those ones that begin with the "C" word.

 

[mikew_RIP]

Hi Mike,

How would you say the FZ72 and the P610 rate up against each other? Pros and cons etc. Although I love my Nikons I'm not all that brand loyal and so would look at getting the best one to suit my needs, regardless of make. I'd even consider those ones that begin with the "C" word.

Difficult to answer that in a sensible way,i had no complaints about it at all,its a lot cheaper and you can see the results in this thread,the Nikon has a slightly longer zoom but nothing really to shout about,the one thing the Nikon has that i like is the button on the side of the lens that knocks the zoom back if you lose framing,you can then re frame and let the button go and the lens jumps back to the previous setting.
If i give it serious thought the main reason i bought the nikon is my enjoyment of this forum and my desire to post any pictures i want anywhere on the forum,i never watch TV so its taking pictures, PP or surfing for me,so i cant give you a good reason to buy the Nikon over the Panasonic.

 

[Elliot87]

Difficult to answer that in a sensible way,i had no complaints about it at all,its a lot cheaper and you can see the results in this thread,the Nikon has a slightly longer zoom but nothing really to shout about,the one thing the Nikon has that i like is the button on the side of the lens that knocks the zoom back if you lose framing,you can then re frame and let the button go and the lens jumps back to the previous setting.
If i give it serious thought the main reason i bought the nikon is my enjoyment of this forum and my desire to post any pictures i want anywhere on the forum,i never watch TV so its taking pictures, PP or surfing for me,so i cant give you a good reason to buy the Nikon over the Panasonic.

I used a canon with that feature to press a button to zoom out to find the subject, it was very handy.

My problem is I need something longer than my 70-300mm but my main option for the D7100 are going to take some time to save for.
Last night I went to see some short eared owls with a friend but they never came close enough for me and my 70-300mm.

This is my best shot sooc taken at 250mm (where the lens is sharper) in 1.3X crop mode so I think that works out at an effective focal length of 500mm and 15.6mp image with the D7100, correct me if I'm wrong.

This is a cropped and slightly edited version from the same series. I think this works out at about 2.8mp.

I assume that under the same conditions, static bird and using car as a support (light wasn't that good but ok), I would have been able to get a much better result using either of the bridge cameras you have been using? I struggle to envision the size of the owl in the frame at 1200mm but it must be quite a lot bigger whilst retaining the full 16mp of the sensor.

If I can spend £200-300 and get decent images that are out of my current reach, that might help my patience saving for a 300m prime or similar. I'd probably carry both the bridge and D7100 so when things are close I can still take advantage the superior D7100.

Sorry for rambling

 

[mikew_RIP]

Its easy to get carried away with headline bridge camera zoom sizes,they dont mean what they say,its only the field of view that changes not the magnification of the target,with your 70-300 zoom on the owl would be the same size on any size sensor,so you get no more reach with a smaller sensor.
The benefit comes in with DX V FX if the DX has a higher or the same MP then the area of your main subject would have more pixels for you to play with,its always said more reach but i think that can be confusing,the Nikon only has a 258mm lens but the small sensor allows the manufactures to say its lens is 5.6 times longer.

Hope i have explained that correctly,if not ime sure someone will correct it.

 

[Elliot87]

Its easy to get carried away with headline bridge camera zoom sizes,they dont mean what they say,its only the field of view that changes not the magnification of the target,with your 70-300 zoom on the owl would be the same size on any size sensor,so you get no more reach with a smaller sensor.
The benefit comes in with DX V FX if the DX has a higher or the same MP then the area of your main subject would have more pixels for you to play with,its always said more reach but i think that can be confusing,the Nikon only has a 258mm lens but the small sensor allows the manufactures to say its lens is 5.6 times longer.

Hope i have explained that correctly,if not ime sure someone will correct it.

I'm not sure that I fully understand. In the case of that owl shot it at 250mm on my D7100, it would be the same size as it would be at 250mm on the Nikon P610. However as P610 has a smaller sensor the owl will take up a higher proportion of it and will therefore look larger when the image is scaled up to the same size. In this case though it would also be comprised of more pixels than an image cropped from my D7100 to get the owl to be an equivalent size in the frame, right?

 

[mikew_RIP]

Imagine you are standing in a room 6ft away from a window,look through the window at the scene,dont move but allow some one to bring a board in the size of the window but with a hole in the middle covering half the area of the window,you now see less of the view (cropped) but what you see in the center is still the same size.
Or thats the way i see this crop situation but ime open to being proved wrong.

 

[Elliot87]

Imagine you are standing in a room 6ft away from a window,look through the window at the scene,dont move but allow some one to bring a board in the size of the window but with a hole in the middle covering half the area of the window,you now see less of the view (cropped) but what you see in the center is still the same size.
Or thats the way i see this crop situation but ime open to being proved wrong.

I think what I'm trying to work out, is which is better. The small cropped area stuffed full of pixels but from an inferior camera, or that small cropped area with far fewer pixels but from a better camera. I think what I'm struggling to visualise is what size hole in the middle of the window, these bridge cameras leave me with at full zoom.

The second owl shot I posted was less than 3 mega pixels. If the P610 gave a comparable final image but was 16 mega pixels, that surely would result in a better image?

 

[mikew_RIP]

I see what your asking but dont have an answer,the more pixels packed denser on a small sensor would be more likely to introduce noise if you needed to crop it,so that could do away with any benefit more pixels may give you.

 

[Elliot87]

I see what your asking but dont have an answer,the more pixels packed denser on a small sensor would be more likely to introduce noise if you needed to crop it,so that could do away with any benefit more pixels may give you.

I appreciate your help, I'll go and do some googling to see what I can find.