Hi

I just got a rushed call from an Aunt who wants to buy a camera for bird photography. I am not going to talk her into an SLR because I know they wouldnt appreciate the weight of lenses etc. She mentioned a newish Canon 3 (S3?) and Lumix FZ7.

Would either of those be suitable? Or are there other more suitable models? She is not online much and I think her computer is being fixed so she isnt able to research. I havent had time to google either. But I am happy to look up info on a couple of suitable models and mail her some info.

Any thoughts?

I tried to step into the digital world a few years ago with a Panasonic DMC FZ-10. It has a fast 2.8 aperture lens with a range of 38-420mm (35mm equivalent). I figured it'd be just fine for shooting sports and wildlife. But, it turned out to have a very noisy sensor, auto-focus is inaccurate and with the tiny viewfinder manually focusing is extremely difficult. Exposures were all over the place and I found it's small size difficult to hold even in my little hands. So, whatever you decide on don't go by specs and raving reviews of others. Try to test it out in the environment you need to use. I've since gone to a DSLR and am very much the "happy camper".

You may want to check out DPReview for this sort of thing. They have a ton of different reviews on the various super zoom point and shoots.

I think that the trick is you are going to want a camera without a huge shutter delay (when I used to own a point and shoot, it seemed that decades would pass before I got the photo after depressing the shutter button).

Cheers
James

My feelings are a bit like James has said - the shutter lag on anything but an SLR makes shooting birds (or jumping dogs) fairly discouraging. We 'sent back' a lovely Konica Minolta because of this: (it was also a 12x super zoom) and took the Panasonic FZ30 12x zoom. Same problem though, cannot use it for birds or dog sports. It would be discouraging to lose shot after shot because of the shutter lag. The Lumix is fine if birds are quiet but not if they are edgey, so it is quite limiting. What about a lighter DSLR like the Pentax, it's not really a compromise, it can probably do all your Aunt would want beautifully with the one kit zoom lens.

Oh, I know about shutter lag as compacts were the first digitals I used. I just assumed that compacts had improved in that department, I really honestly dont know what they are like these days.

I think my aunt currently uses (or had used) a film SLR, not sure what model though, but most likely an entry level one. Next time she calls I will pick her brains a bit more.