Thanks for the information.
Snipped.

I’ve never used a photo editor before, and don’t know that would be something I’d have the patience for.

Again, thanks for the information you’ve given me. I’ve been afraid that the DSLR cameras may be far more than what I need, and wasn’t sure if the bridge cameras would fit the basics for what I do photography-wise. The information you’ve provided so far is helping me understand things that were very foreign to me.

Rob

Rob, go and play with a Bridge camera in the shop. IMO you don’t want to get into the depth of SLR shooting an all the editing etc. Of course, you can set the DSLR to Auto, set the sharpening up, set the picture style up……but all you are doing then is turning a DSLR into a point and shoot with a big lens.

You may even get a good deal on a 2nd hand bridge for those ppl that have moved onto an SLR from a bridge.

Battery life, A DSLR will probably have a better battery life. My Panasonic (FZ20 from 2004) has a terrible battery life, for a full day at an airshow I would take 3, yes 3 batteries. This canon 450 I have now will go > 1,000 shots before it’s down to 1 bar. The Image stabilisation on Panasonic is, IMO incredible, and better than Canon DSLR IMO. With that FZ20 I once took a 1 handed shot of an aircraft at 20,000 feet or so, on full digital zoom (48x). You could count the windows and read the reg. off the wing. Incredible.

So, if going for a bridge, consider a 2nd battery.

In case you didn’t know, Digital Zoom is only a gimmick. All it does is electronically enlarge the maximum true zoom. So, don’t get sold on a big digital zoom figure.
I used digi zoom as a mwessabout (Like the aircraft above) or a telescope!