This is the second post about “What Type of Digital Camera?”. As described in the previous post, digital cameras can be divided into three types: Compact or Point-and-Shoot Digital Cameras (beginner), Bridge or High-end Digital Cameras (advanced) and Digital SLR Cameras (professional).
2. Bridge or High-end Digital Cameras
Bridge or high-end digital cameras have some advantages over compact digital cameras. Bridge cameras have fully automatic, semi-automatic or manual control with first-class fixed lenses to allow more creativity and flexibility. Most of them have a resolution between 6 and 10 mega pixels. If you are a advanced photographer or just want more control and a powerful zoom, these cameras are the bridge between compact digital cameras, and the professional digital SLR cameras.
Bridge cameras do not have interchangeable lenses and lack the mirror and reflex system of digital SLR cameras. The picture is composed by looking at the liquid crystal display (LCD) or through the electronic viewfinder (EVF). The difference in views compared to a Digital SLR camera is that an EVF shows a digitally-created through-the-lens (TTL) picture, while the viewfinder in a Digital SLR shows the real optical TTL picture via the reflex viewing system. Bridge cameras often have super zoom lenses which offer a very wide zoom range, typically between 10x and 18x, which is achieved at the cost of some distortion.
They are generally slower to operate than a digital SLR, but they are capable of very good picture quality despite the fact that they are more compact and lighter than digital SLR cameras. The high-end models of this type have similar resolutions to low and mid-range digital SLR cameras. Many of these cameras can store images in RAW and JPEG format. Most bridge cameras have a built-in flash, commonly a unit which flips up over the lens.
As they are built with components comparable to those found in the compact cameras, they also have the same technical boundaries as compact cameras, such as a small sensor size. However, better quality control and the use of better optics means bridge cameras can deliver pictures that are quite good.
In the next post, I will discuss digital SLR cameras.
Fujifilm Finepix S9000 / Bridge camera
Panasonic DMC-FZ50 / Bridge camera
Tags: bridge camera, EVF, zoom
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