Best bridge camera advice.

[Graham]

If only it would snow ..

Nope, don't want to see any of that white stuff.   

Hi Tony, and welcome to CC.  Great pics on your Flickr.   

Oh yes we do and lots of it. 

    We want this much!




                        Graham.

[Beaux Reflets]

Thanks for the welcome guys,
and your kind words on my pics, I always use 8mp,and never turn it off manual now.
I love the versatility of the HS20 ,but I must say like many others I am eagerly waiting for the X-S1.
If it lives up to the expectations it should be really something special ..

Hi Tony,
Looking at the X-S1 spec it looks quite promising - Wish they would send me one to test - Nice shots by the way. 

[Hinfrance]

Thanks for the welcome guys,
and your kind words on my pics, I always use 8mp,and never turn it off manual now.
I love the versatility of the HS20 ,but I must say like many others I am eagerly waiting for the X-S1.
If it lives up to the expectations it should be really something special ..

Hi Tony,
Looking at the X-S1 spec it looks quite promising - Wish they would send me one to test - Nice shots by the way. 

The price looks quite 'special' too 

[Geoff I]

What makes the Fujifilm X-S1 so expensive from its other bridge cameras? is it that they are using better glass, seems a whopping price difference for a bridge camera or am I missing something.

[Hinfrance]

It has the sensor from the X100 and I'm guessing a superior lens and EVF.

My HS20 arrived yesterday, and I am currently bashing away with some test shots.

[Beaux Reflets]

What makes the Fujifilm X-S1 so expensive from its other bridge cameras? is it that they are using better glass, seems a whopping price difference for a bridge camera or am I missing something.

The 9 blade shutter will be part of the increase as well as the glass - The downside of the fuji S8000fd bridge camera for me is the polygon bouq' unless you use the 'sunset' program that seems to convert the shape to circular which is fine when taking landscapes and I guess that it is the same with the HS20 - must borrow the daughter's to check that out. I guess the price may reflect the aspect of not having to edit angular bouq' or lens flare - will have to wait and see

The glass on the HS20 is pretty good as this shot still shows the cock's whiskers at full zoom (126mm) 720 equiv' 

Have fun Howard - I can see the Bridge versus DSLR challenges rocketing 

[Hinfrance]

HS20 First impressions:

Handling - very good - direct access for just about everything, smooth zoom
IS - excellent, making it possible to realistically hand hold shots at full zoom.
EVF - awful, small, slow to react, significantly worse than my first Fuji bridge, the much missed S9500
LCD - very good, bright, clear and articulated, easy to read all the settings
Lens - this is a masterpiece. Enormous range. Focuses very close even without either macro mode engaged, clear and sharp all the way through. Very little chromatic aberration, even contra jour.
Flash - adequate and the hotshoe does allow it to be used with my Pentax dedicated Metz unit, the latter being set to 'auto'.
Sensor - pretty much a complete disaster. Noise is apparent even at 100 ISO. Switching to 8mp gives the impression of an improvement, but actually is not noticeably different when enlarged to the same degree (ie 100% on 16mp, 200% on 8mp). Again, significantly worse than the S9500 (from how many years ago?). I think I may have cracked the pixel smearing issue by turning the sharpness control to 'soft'. Early days, I am determined to find the 'sweet spot' for this sensor. Any tips from either Tony or Andy will be gratefully received.

So far, I'd say it's worth the current discounted price of just over £230. If I had paid the original asking price for this I would have been very very annoyed.

I've just updated my Elements 9.0 and it now reads the RAFs, so I shall see how I get on with those. Although I have processed a few through Photoplus X5 and the noise issues are not much different from the jpgs.

All that said, I will be using this as my 'take on holidays' camera (my LX5 will definitely be in my pocket at the same time though), because it is very multi-purpose and with a bit of work (some quickly processed pictures will be added here shortly) a decent fist can be made of pictures shot at 100 or 200 ISO. 

Full zoom 16mp:


Contra jour - 16mp


Crespuscular shot - EXR dynamic range priority, 8mp


This morning's moon, full zoom (720mm equivalent) hand held, 16mp

[Beaux Reflets]

I have only used the beasty a couple of times so not yet found any of the sweat spots. From an engineers view point my guess is one will be found around mid focal range.

I can see the angular flare shapes in your Contra jour shot Howard, so that's one less test and see to do 

[Hinfrance]

Still mucking about with it, and the sensor issues seem to be very similar to that of other small sensor cameras - you need good light to get the best out of them. 400 ISO works pretty well, but only if the sun is out. Turning down the in camera sharpening to its lowest setting has made a noticeable improvement. I currently still have NR set on normal, but will have a play with that over the next few days too.

I'm still not finding it better to switch to 8mp.

I am using the camera mostly on aperture priority.

[jinky]

It was the evf that put me off mainly and poor higher iso shots taken on my card in the shop. It is a good price though but I`m still sticking with my D700 and my little Pana TZ5 when I cannot carry the big un I think.

[Hinfrance]

I think it's fair to say that the EVF is only designed to be used when the ambient light is too bright for the main screen, or other occasional use.

Turning off the internal sharpening has been a revelation and coupled with slightly underexposing, a bunch of shots I took this morning at up to 400ISO all came out acceptably free of noise and look brilliant after tweak of the clarity slider, either in ACR or Photoplus.

The thing is with higher end DSLRs like yours and I humbly suggest, mine, you can shoot at high ISO in poor light and not really notice too much degradation in image quality. This is certainly a long way from being the case with compacts and bridges.

On the one hand you lose the higher sensitivity, but on the plus side you have greater portability, huge versatility with the zoom range, instant panoramas and reasonable video. It's just a matter of personal choice.

For now my road trip 'bag' will be the HS20 and LX5, a handful of AA batteries and maybe a small flash gun added later on.

I'm going to discipline myself to use the HS20 only for the rest of the month to make sure I know how to use it properly without having to think about it.

[Beaux Reflets]

Still mucking about with it, and the sensor issues seem to be very similar to that of other small sensor cameras - you need good light to get the best out of them. 400 ISO works pretty well, but only if the sun is out. Turning down the in camera sharpening to its lowest setting has made a noticeable improvement. I currently still have NR set on normal, but will have a play with that over the next few days too.

I'm still not finding it better to switch to 8mp.

I am using the camera mostly on aperture priority.

I have to admit I have not started to delve around testing the various settings as yet Howard, so you are now ahead of me on that.

Rightly or wrong, I cannot fathom how 8mp would improve image quality. I assume the sensor is anchored in a fixed position and effectively converting from 16 to 8mp is therefore a computerised program thing done within camera rather than on a PC (and may be more understandable if it is all to do with converting to .jpeg within the camera) - Accordingly I will carry on processing the 16 mp RAW.

I may have another play later today if I get some free time. 

[Beaux Reflets]

I still like using a viewfinder as it helps me to stabilise a camera working freehand, and to frame the shot. Although, I must practice more without, if view finders are being phased out  ; so I do not miss capturing the occasional surprises in diversion. 

[Hinfrance]

I've been out for an afternoon constitutional and taken a few test shots. I have now posted the full sized results on my flickr stream, along with one from yesterday afternoon and a couple from this morning. They were saved for web at 75% compression, so won't be much degraded. Processing was in Photoplus and consisted of a tad of clarity slider and in a couple of cases a bit of B+C.

I am working with jpgs at the moment, as the dynamic range seems to be more than adequate and I have found (so far) that the RAWs are a bit too noisy for my liking.

[Oldboy]

If only it would snow ..

Nope, don't want to see any of that white stuff.   

Hi Tony, and welcome to CC.  Great pics on your Flickr.   

Oh yes we do and lots of it. 

    We want this much!




                        Graham.

Like this! 

Thousands of British skiers are stranded in villages in the Austrian Alps after a freak snowfall of up to 18ft.

Among the worst affected resorts is Ischgl, popular with British holidaymakers for its extensive skiing and nightlife, as well as Galtur and St Anton am Arlberg.

Officials say tens of thousands of holidaymakers in the Tirol are cut off after the snow fell in just 48 hours, making roads completely inaccessible. Experts say there is also a high risk of avalanche.

In Ischgl 13,000 people, including more than 1,000 British tourists are trapped, while one Russian visitor reportedly managed to leave the resort by helicopter.

The weight of the snow means that many trees have collapsed, further complicating road clearances.

Or this! 

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/alaska-record-cold-snow-storm-photo/60038

It's getting colder here this weekend!