Which bridge camera....

[Vulgar LS2]

I need to select a bridge camera for my 12 year old daughter (as a christmas psesent), she is very artistic and is being put on a gifted and talented programme that her school runs.

So to help her along we have decided that a camera would be a good idea for her to express and broarden her artistic flaire.

I don't want to spend a fortune so we have set a budget of £300.

The spec needs to include,

Slow motion 1000fps would be nice
A good zoom
CMOS sensor
and she has seen a feature that allows you to alter the angle of the lens, but doesn't know what it's called.
Adjustable shutter speed

We have looked at the Fujifilm HS30 today but it only goes to 300fps according to the chap in Currys.

Any help on this would be great as we don't know anything about cameras and I only want to buy once.

Thanks

Andy

[Simpo Two]

Only 300fps? Crikey, I manage with 5.

'Alter the angle of the lens'... well I doubt they mean tilt/shift lenses so it must mean angle of view, eg wide angle and telephoto. And that is what a zoom lens does, so you have that covered



Not a basic DSLR then?

[nellyleelephant]

What do you expect her to be more interested in? Video or stills?

1000fps is pretty specialist I would have thought!

[Vulgar LS2]

I did think about a basic DSLR and then i saw how much lenses are .

As for the fps her grandad has a casio with 1000fps and she likes filming action, like jumping about on the trampoline, so I can't get her something less than what grandad has got as that is her main thing she wants.

[Vulgar LS2]

nellyleelephant said:

What do you expect her to be more interested in? Video or stills?

1000fps is pretty specialist I would have thought!

We want to get her something that she can experiment with (stills and video) we just want her to explore artistically realy, and for her to keep her options open as to what she enjoys best.

[DavidY]

ok a few things about 1000fps

1) Capture was at 1,000 fps, which restricts image size to 224 x 64.
2) You will need a lot of illumination, this frame rate will just not work unless the subject is brightly lit
3) It's more designed for experiments, rather than capturing people on a trampolin, at that resolution they will just be a pixelated mess.

I wouldn't get hung up on the 1000fps, there is a finite rate of memory transfer in any camera, so to record images a high speed resolution must be sacrificed. In short it's a gimick to sell more Casio cameras.

I suspect that you need to look at framerates when capturing a reasonable image size such as 640x480 or its widescreen equivalent.

People on trampolines will be adequately handled by normal video rates 30/60 fps.

If your daughter does want to capture fast moving images then shutter lag will be more important, and you should concentrate on that rather than outright speed.

My advice is to forget all about specifications, take your daughter to a camera shop and let her handle a number of cameras, they are all different sizes and weights, and some she will find more comfortable than others. Look at the other controls as well, how easy are they to use. Buy something that she feels comfortable with, otherwise it will be sat in a corner gathering dust a couple of months after Christmas.

I bought my daughter a Bridge Camera when she was 8, I took her to a shop, and I bought the one she was most comfortable with. She still uses it regularly today (now 13).

Edited by DavidY on Friday 30th November 19:25

[Vulgar LS2]

This is the one we were looking at http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Com...

What are they like as a brand?

[littleredrooster]

Let me say from the outset that I have a bias; I've not yet had decent image quality 'out-of-the-box' from any of the three Fujis that I've had (or the Olympus, or Pentax, for that matter). My last several cameras have been Canons, the latest being this

I'm told that the equivalent Nikon is also very good, but I can vouch that the Canon produces cracking images and (IMO) has a very intuitive user interface. The zoom is amazing and the IS system gives extremely sharp results even at maximum extension.

The missus has one of these which, given that it's pocket-sized, is equally amazing. Both obviously have full manual control as well as many presets.

Terrific kit!

[Skodaku]

Vulgar LS2 said:

This is the one we were looking at http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Com...

What are they like as a brand?

Apols for tardy reply; just seen this thread. Can highly recommend the Fujifilm HS30EXR. Son has one and it is superb. Possibilities, straight out of the box, are astounding.