Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"The Fujifilm FinePix HS20 EXR is a new super-zoom digital compact camera. Looking and handling like a DSLR, the bridge-style Fujifilm HS20 EXR boasts a 30x zoom lens which covers a 35mm equivalent focal range of 24-720mm and also features mechanical image stabilisation and twist-barrel manual zoom and focusing controls. Other highlights of the camera include a 16 megapixel EXR Back Side Illuminated CMOS sensor, a 3-inch tilting LCD monitor, electronic viewfinder with eye-sensor for automatic switching, full 1080p HD movie recording with stereo sound, ISO range of 100-12800, High Speed movie capture at 320 fps, continuous shooting at 8fps, 0.16 second autofocusing, full manual controls and support for the RAW file format."

Super-zoom digital compact cameras pose a quandary for many photographers. While they offer an incredibly versatile lens with a very long format zoom, there are always compromises in a lens that tries to do as much as these do. Compromises can include such things as image distortions at the extremities of the lens and perhaps being a little short on the wide-angle end of things. But, there are advantages to such a powerful lines in a compact camera format. They are small enough to easily carry around for extended periods, and they can replace one or more lenses that you would normally have to carry in your kit if you are using a DSLR with multiple lenses. I personally have debated the relative merits of these cameras over the years, but have ended up going the DLSR route with a set of lenses to cover multiple situations. However, with the advances that cameras like this one have demonstrated, it may be time to reconsider.

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"The so-called 'Travel Zoom' category hasn't been around long - in fact the first camera that could really lay claim to the label was the Panasonic TZ1, released in 2006. The idea of a wide zoom lens in a genuinely compact form factor (as opposed to a 'bridge' or DSLR type) has obvious mass appeal, and as a result, all of the major camera manufacturers (and a couple of the minor ones too) have been pulling out all the stops in an effort to cater for this demand. As a consequence, this group test covers a lot more cameras than the last test of this type, which we published a year ago. Since then, new wide-zoom compact lines have been introduced, from the likes of Casio and Nikon, and established ones, like Panasonic's ZS/TZ series, have matured."

Just in time for the summer holidays, DPReview.com takes 13 cameras from this relatively new but popular category and pits them against each other. The winners of this roundup are a little surprising; for once a Panasonic or Canon camera didn't win this shoot out. I'll leave readers to find out who did, but I'm pleased that one of the cameras in the group comes from a company I was talking about just a while back. Good to see some competition among the manufacturers!