Shopping Bridge Digital Cameras

The bridge digital camera is a fascinating beast. It lies firmly in the territory between digital compact cameras and digital SLRs (Single Lens Reflexes). They first appeared when the gap in price between digital compacts and digital SLRs was huge and bridge digital cameras provided the advanced creative control of an SLR without the hefty price tag.However I have just purchased a digital SLR for just £50 more than I paid for a bridge digital camera two years ago. The big camera manufacturers are moving away from the bridge digital camera and into the digital SLR market now.

The bridge digital camera is a wonderful photographic tool. My two year old Konica-Minolta Dimage A1 has far more features on it than my brand new Canon 400D - two in particular that I'm going to continue to use my A1 for even though it only creates 5megapixel (mp) images as opposed to the Canon's 10mp. One of these features is a viewfinder that rotates through ninety degrees - wonderful when the camera is being used on a tripod because it's much more comfortable and easier on the neck and back.

The other is a viewscreen that pulls out and angles upwards. I'm a plant photographer and my cameras frequently find themselves inches above the ground. With my old film cameras this meant lying on my stomach to see what I was photographing. The A1 meant I could look down and enjoy the view.Bridge digital camera s also come with a lens that generally has a generous optical zoom (compared to compact cameras) Currently Sony have three offerings: the DSC-H1 (12x) the DSC-R1 (5x) and the DSC-H2 (12x). Fuji is the other major Bridge digital camera manufacturer with the Finepix: S9600 S9500 S6500 all at (10.7x) and the S5600 (10x). and while I am a huge fan and always have been of the lens interchangeability with SLR cameras they do have one disadvantage dust gets inside the camera.

Now with film you are using a brand new 'image sensor' every time you take a shot because you wind the film on to expose a clean piece straight out of the cassette. so the only thing you have to keep clean is the lens and that is easy enough to do with a blower brush or canister of air.With a digital SLR you use the same image sensor for each picture so if you get a bit of dust on it it is on every single image you create and means endless hours in Photoshop or your other favourite image processing software re touching. Lower priced SLR lenses now have plastic rather than metal mounts and these are a source of dust problems.

The Canon 400D and a few other brand new digital SLRs now have dust removal 'vibrators' built in to tackle this problem because the sensor is too delicate to clean with a brush or blast of air.The bridge digital camera is sealed for life and if you get one with a good zoom range and an effective macro facility you'll have a camera that will fit in a small bag and cover almost every photographic task you could want.