Bridge Camera. Canon SX40 Any Good?

Cheap as chips on 20/03/2012 - 01:09

Hey everyone,

I am after a half decent camera for under $500. I'm not a photographer and don't intend to do anything too fancy hence thinking about a bridge camera rather than an slr.

Does anyone have any recommendations? The Canon SX40 HS seems to get good reviews which I can find for around the $400. Anyone seen it any cheaper?

Thanks for your help

Find Me A Bargain

Comments

    • nanoronline on 20/03/2012 - 19:04

      becextech does not have very good reviews from the Whirlpool forum. I will suggest to buy from T-Dimension, which I did for mine.

  • nanoronline on 20/03/2012 - 19:22

    It depends on what you are going after. If you are into zooming at very far away things (like bird-watching, concerts, etc.), then SX40 is to go for.

    But if having the largest optical zoom range is not a must-have for you, I will suggest going for the Panasonic Lumix FZ150. It only has 24x optical zoom, and low-light photos maybe not be as good as SX40's but the FZ150 has almost DSLR-like focusing speed and shutter lag compared to SX40, which is slower. And FZ150 can take 12 full size photos in 1 second, followed by 5 images for each second afterwards if you do not wait for a while. And I have read that SX40 cannot do that.

    Anyway, to summarise, FZ150 is a very good all-rounder camera. It also has DSLR-like features like the photo-taking speed, RAW format capture, better and larger screen as well as its electrical viewfinder compared to the SX40.

    I bought mine from T-Dimension just two weeks ago without any extras (like SD card, got a SanDisk Ultra from MSY instead) for $469 from their eBay site, because I read that it seems they give more priority to their eBay purchases compared to their websites'). It has express shipping with tracking using DHL. Purchased on Sunday night, received on Wednesday so I was very pleased with it.

    Got from T-Dimension because it has better feedbacks in the Whirlpool forums. And because it is so much cheaper than buying locally ($799 from Ted's, $650 from Digital Camera House, etc.). And the NTSC model records 60fps videos, compared to PAL's 50fps.

    Sorry for the long post but I hope all these info from a FZ150 user's perspective will help you with your decision-making!

    • Cheap as chips on 20/03/2012 - 21:02

      Thanks for your suggestion and advice nanoronline, the speed of the FZ150 is appealing. The only hesitation I have is the quality in low light. Think I'll go into a shop and see if I can test them side by side - then order online lol.

      • nanoronline on 20/03/2012 - 22:02

        Haha yeah that's the good thing of local shops: letting you try the cameras for free before buying online.

  • nanoronline on 23/03/2012 - 06:13

    So how did it go? Here is a video review of the FZ150 from someone one who has also reviewed on the SX40HS:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSWFIIaluVI&feature=colike

  • Cheap as chips on 23/03/2012 - 15:06

    Well thanks for your help guys, I ended up going for the Sony HX100V from T-Dimensions. Hopefully it will be here in a few days.

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