Best Big Zoom Camera?

Which camera out there is the Best Big Zoom Camera, say in the range of 10 to 12 Times Zoom? Thanks Bobby

Not sure what you mean by the best, but if I were buying a big zoom digicam, I would put my money with the Panasonic FZ30. I had the FZ10 (sold it to a family member) and I liked the color rendition and optical quality of the lens.
--
Frank from Phoenix
Canon1DMk2,1D,Oly5060 and lots of typos

I'm currently in the market for a 10/12x zoom camera, on a fairly tight budget though. I have narrowed my list down to 5/6 cameras:

Kodak Z740 - cheapest by a mile but no image stabilization is a big problem for me
Kodak P850 / Panasonic FZ7 / Canon S2 IS / Sony DSC H1 / Sony DSC H2

The last 5 all seem fairly inseparable, each with their small + - points.

The Sony's look like the best cameras but the more expensive mem cards are a potential problem, whilst the FZ7 looks v.good but it doesn't take AA batteries which would be useful as I will be away travelling with nowhere to charge them up for substantial amounts of time.

My advice is to look around, I'm basically waiting until one of them drops into my price range (as close to £200 as possible) or I make some money from somewhere which isn't easy with A levels at the moment!

I'm thinking of the new Kodak Z612, Image stabilized, 12X, 6MegP, and the most important for me MPEG4 video. I have a broken Olympus C770 now and may not get it fixed. Love the MPEG4,not sure any others have it. The Kodak does not look too big and hope I can get a belt pack that will hold it. I found a Sony Cypershot pack that holds my C770 and love that.
Kube

I have a Canon S1 IS for 2 years and I am pleased. For my daughter I will buy a Canon S2 IS. She likes my S1.
--
Zeev

There really is no such thing as the "best". You'll have to try them out and decide for yourself which one is best for you. Start out reading the reviews and work from there.
--
Tom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/

The way one feels may just be the deciding factor. It was the final point for me.
--
H1 fun button...Always on

I've had several of these, including the Panasonic FZ-20, FZ-30, Canon S2 IS, and now the Fujifilm S9000. For me, the Panasonic's noise (30) and slow operation (20) ruled them out, even though in good light and with no rush, they produced EXCELLENT images. I really do want to stress that - when the light is good, these two were awesome cameras.

But the light, she plays the tricks, eh? In difficult lighting situations these cameras had problems and the pictures often turned out too noisy to be acceptable.

The Canon S2 IS, I had for less than a month. Great movies, excellent swivel and tilt LCD screen, but it felt "cheap" and plastiky to me, and had no external flash hotshoe - I thought I'd be ok with that, but I wasn't.

So that lead me to the Fujifilm S9000. No image stabilization, and the pictures can seem soft, but the camera is fast in operation and the noise at any ISO below 800 is really quite good. At ISO 80 you can't, for all practical purposes, tell the difference between an image shot with the Fuji or a Canon Rebel XT DSLR. Compare an image from the Fuji at ISO 400 to one from the Panasonic FZ-30 at ISO 80 and you'll realize that Panasonic's OIS doesn't do a thing. The images will be about the same level of noise, and since the Fuji is shooting at 3 stops more speed, the lens shake is minimized equally well.

Oh, and the Fuji takes AA batteries.

But ya know what, my mantra is, "It's all good". There really aren't any magic cameras out there that do good in every situation, and all of the cameras out there will do ok in 80-90% of what you're shooting unless you're an action addict or someone who lives to photograph ants mating.

matrix1272centurytelnet said:

Which camera out there is the Best Big Zoom Camera, say in the
range of 10 to 12 Times Zoom? Thanks Bobby

Click to expand...

Ditto what Tom said. My niece and son have the S2IS and they are very good cameras as both are quite happy. I have a FZ5 and like it, but would like to get my hands on theirs to compare.

Here is a honeysuckle bloom with my FZ5 on macro fully extended with a close up filter.



whvick