I sold my Panasonic DMC-FZ18 to a birder in India last spring, thinking that I would simply order one of the next generation of ultra-zooms. Thanks to Amazons 30 day return policy I tried the Fujifilm HS10, Nikon P100, Panasonic FZ100 and now the Canon SX30IS. Its my first day...but it looks like the Canon is a keeper (finally). From a birders perspective....focusing was a constant struggle for the Nikon & Fuji...they only took good pictures in ideal conditions...and even then images were soft (blurry detail). The Panasonic did a great job of staying in focus...but is shots were too soft for my eye. This Canon is doing an amazing job of focusing, it ignored the foliage in the way & picked out a crow perched in a tree enjoying an apple, more than a 1000 feet distant at 35X. My 35X shot of a Golden crowned sparrow ...in mediocre light... was really detailed and the 35X shot of a Black Phoebe in late afternoon light was tops as well. The image stabilization is excellent!...and it feels so much lighter than the Fuji...comparable with the Panasonic FZ100. To be continued.
I used a Nikon E8800 (8mp, 10x zoom) for 5 years as my primary digital P&S. It was satisfactory in every way, although newer cameras with large LCD displays, longer zoom, faster shutter response and lots of additional electronic features did tempt me to switch. But the images produced by the 8800 were so consistent and noticeably better than what my buddies produced with a range of other P&S cameras that the temptation to 'upgrade' was easy to suppress. Sadly a few months ago the 8800 became unusable because of Nikon's dreaded "System Error" which has defied repair; so a replacement became unavoidable.
My style of photography demands a good zoom and I tried several cameras (Lumix FZ-28, Pentax X-90, Finepix S-1800, etc) and found the quality of images were well below the clarity of the 8800. Basically it comes down to the size of the sensor, which is a much under-rated factor as all manufacturers and sellers try to convince us that the mega-pixel count is the ultimate metric for resolution - WRONG. For instance the 8800 has a 8mp CCD 1/1.5" sensor (which translates to an area of 0.58sq cm and a pixel density of approx 12mp/sqcm ). All the cameras mentioned above use a sensor size 1/2.33" (0.28 sq cm), ie less than half the size of the E8800 and, due to the increase in megapixel count, with a 400% increase in pixel density ! No wonder the images aren't as sharp, especially when enlarged to full size on a computer screen. The Canon G-11 has a larger sensor but its optical zoom tops out at 5x, hence it did not appeal to me.
The SX30IS also has the small 1/2.33" sensor and, as expected, I noticed a lot of image noise even when the light conditions were good. To overcome this problem I changed the ISO setting to 80 (instead of the default AUTO) and reduced the resolution to 7M. This has improved the clarity of the pictures and reduced the unwanted image `noise' considerably. It is now my 'standard' setting.
The SX30IS is a delight to use. In particular the wide angle is really wide and the zoom is WOW! The digital zoom does not produce unacceptable graininess in the image. The in-built flash does a commendable job even at the fixed ISO 80 setting. The camera has a comfortable size & balance and a good feel to it. Being about 100 gms lighter than my E8800 makes it easier to carry around and, if necessary, to hold & operate with one hand. The articulated screen is very useful. The auto-focus is fairly accurate though at large zoom settings the best focus is obtained on the 2nd or 3rd attempt. It does take a bit of time getting used to the different menus and features, but that's to be expected where so many features are crammed into such a small package.
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