Are There Speed Cameras At The Verazzaons Bridge

What is a span camera?

Stuck choosing between a DSLR and a meaty camera? Then buy a bridge photographic camera

A stalwart of the digital photography industry for the past decade, the bridge photographic camera forms a bridge betwixt a compact point-and-shoot photographic camera and a full-blown DSLR.

Information technology typically features some, but not all, of the manual settings and even physical controls that ane would expect to find on an entry-level DSLR, including occasional control dials and chunky shooting fashion wheels. But it retains some of the accessibility and user friendliness of a snapshot camera, plus the lens can't be removed or swapped.

Unsurprisingly, its pattern has aspects of the two types of camera, although the overall look and treatment of a bridge camera tends to suggest what we'd term a DSLR 'light'.

Nearly every traditional camera manufacturer and electronics giant has a span model in its electric current range. In the example of Fujifilm, to accept ane example, until the launch of its 'X' series of high-stop compacts (Fuji X10, Fuji X100), this was the closest the manufacturer got to a more than professional person camera.

Even now, the Fuji FinePix HS20 and flagship Fuji XS-one models have retained the await and feel of a DSLR. These come complete with transmission operation of the zoom, a unique characteristic among span models that tend to rely on a push press to prompt the camera to zoom in or out.

Fuji's manual lens operation arguably enables more than precise movement and framing. DSLR-like features such equally the ability to shoot unprocessed raw files aslope the JPEG files offered by meaty cameras are another feature of most, just not all, bridge cameras.

Also equally offering a best of both worlds approach in terms of features and versatility, a singled-out advantage of the typical bridge camera is a vastly expanded focal range. In other words, they'll unremarkably have a longer zoom than you lot'd observe on cameras of more than compact proportions. For argument'south sake, let'due south say more than than the 18x offered by compact travel zooms.

While this means that on a bridge camera just the ane lens provides a fantastically broad assortment of framing options, the other distinctly appealing aspect is the cost.

For example, to match the focal range provided by the likes of Catechism's PowerShot SX40 HS, which offers upwardly to 840mm in 35mm terms, DSLR owners would exist looking at spending around £10-£11k on a specialist lens.

This bigger lens also further differentiates bridge cameras from those cameras that have been labelled every bit premium compacts, such as the Catechism G15 or Nikon P7700, which offer DSLR-similar solidity, merely modest zoom or fixed focal length lenses.

Of form, we couldn't argue that a bridge camera costing under £400 volition lucifer the quality of a DSLR with a mega expensive optic, because of the much smaller sensor size at its cadre for starters, when compared with the APS-C scrap institute in entry-level DSLRs. But many amateurs will experience that the bridge camera's compromise is worth it, because of the wide wealth of framing and capture options at your disposal.

Information technology'due south too worth noting that an equivalent lens for a DSLR will be non just expensive, it'll also exist large, heavy and physically unwieldy.

The span camera isn't merely more affordable so; information technology'southward a much, much more than portable choice. Shoot wide or at the extremes of the camera's telephoto (maximum zoom) setting - and toggle betwixt them in a matter of seconds - the pick is yours.

It'south perhaps no surprise then that the all-encompassing versatility of today's bridge photographic camera sees information technology marketed at families, who might take otherwise been considering an entry-level DSLR, as well equally enthusiasts and bird and animal watchers, who volition appreciate that extra lens reach without spending a fortune.

This is also why the relative affordability and accessibility of compact organization cameras (CSCs), and their interchangeable lenses, has failed to kill off the bridge photographic camera. So the bridge camera isn't a niche product, but rather a mass market one.

Given the lens power shoehorned onto its meaty DSLR-like frame, the bridge camera is too imaginatively known in some circles equally a superzoom, mega zoom or power zoom.