marcus550 wrote:
Bought the SP-100 based on recommendations of a 'super zoom' camera for use on our first ever trip to Africa. In general, I was very glad to have it. The zoom is incredible. I could zoom in on something and take a shot, then zoom in on the shot and see what kind of raptor was on a branch on a mountain ahead of us. Just awesome. It was quick, too, which is a huge benefit when dealing with random wild animals.
The dot-sight worked great. I was able to get many birds on the wing and be able to identify them. We never saw a Cheetah on the move so I couldn't test it out with a fast land animal. I ended up leaving the dot-sight popped up all of the time after the push-down broke (see below). This was actually a benefit as I began to rely on the dot-sight to quickly get a zoomed in animal into the view finder.
Problem 1: The most frustrating aspect of the camera was the lack of manual control over the flash. Many times I wanted a fill for near subject during the day but it locks out the flash. Even using the manual setting would not allow the flash.
Problem 2: The flash and dot-sight pop up fine, but after a few days of use, I could not push them back down. The flash alone was fine, but the dot-sight lens would prevent the flash from being pushed back down. I had to reach in and carefully fold that lens down until it latched before pushing the flash back down.
Problem 3: Focus. It has three focus modes and none really seemed to work for safari. I took over 3000 pictures and every 4th or 5th shot was out of focus. If it has a means of manually focusing, I never found it. This may not be unique to the SP-100, though. Trying to shoot a bird in a tree often focused on the branch in front of it and there was no way around it.
Overall I'm glad we took this camera, and for the cost(!) it was better than expected. One guy on a safari vehicle with us kept trying to change lenses in the dusty, bumpy, constantly moving game drive only to miss that critter completely. I could zoom in and get several shots in an instant.
Kudu
Roller
I just noticed that was your first post. Welcome to the forum, looking forward to more of your photographs, this guy is my new screensaver, it is wonderful at that size.