Canisdirus

Context matters...

Only comparing the Sony bridge to other bridges...some of which are smaller and lighter.

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

1. Choose a candidate and rent one for a week. When I did that for the Sony RX10 III it pleased me so much I bought one before the rental period was up.

2. The Nikon Coolpix 900 or 950 has a sensor that is 1/4 the area of the Sony RX10 but the apparent or equivalent zoom is much longer. We have the 900 and the 1000. The 1000 is much heavier than the 9xx because the actual focal length of the lens is about 540 mm and the equivalent is 3000mm!! For birding it's spectacular. Although it has the same small sensor it takes somewhat better pictures than the 9xx. I can shoot with the 1000 free hand at full length and often can get a sharp (enough) picture but it's not easy. My wife get it right about 10% of the time but would do better if she would rest the lens against something. That said, her good shots, because of the equivalent length, are simply great. A good shot at full extension with the Coolpix 1000 is almost always better than my shots at the same distance with my RX10. The 540 mm lens (actual) beats the 220 mm sense (actual) well enough that the bigger sensor can't compete. Keep in mind that the Nikon crams 16 mb into an image and the Sony only has 20 mb in 4x the area. Sony's image quality is better but not when you have to enlarge 5x to get the same size subject.

3. The Sony RX10 IV
https://www.sony.ca/en/electronics/cyber-shot-compact-cameras/dsc-rx10m4
is close in size and weight to the Nikon 9xx series but is much nicer ergonomically. If you rent one you will see what I mean. The image quality and the eye-focus are great, even for pets or birds. But an equivalent 600 mm is not anywhere near either of the Coolpix's 2000 mm.
https://en.nikon.ca/nikon-products/product-archive/compact-digital-cameras/coolpix-p900.html
But if you intend to enlarge and print then, if 600 mm is enough then the Sony, at a higher price, is the best choice. I have printed some pics from the Coolpix 1000 up to 11 x 14 with acceptable results but IMO, the Sony's image quality is clearly better.

4. Be aware that if the same size sensor as the RX10 IV but with only 200 mm equivalent would suffice, then the RX100 m7 might be a good choice because it's very small and light and has comparable image quality.

I'm a confessed Sony fan-boy so others will say that their favorite brand is best. YMMV.

I have deliberately avoided discussing digital zoom in this. Some people disagree with me about this.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

All valid points. I too like the Nikon P1000, and I too am a Sony fanboi. But the RX10-iv is liked by many who own other brands of DSLR/mirrorless. I have a die-hard Canon-shooting friend who owns an RX10-iv, and I've a friend who owns only a P1000. She gets some images from her Nikon bridge that rival my and my friend's images from our top of the line Sony and Canon gear -- but she also gets images that cannot match those from ours.

Since you avoided it, I'll mention digital zoom and Sony's Clear Image Zoom (CIZ). It's jpeg only, but oh, what jpegs! CIZ is not simply a digital crop, or magnification. And Sony's not the only company working wonders with jpegs.

Cellphones use computational photography to render jpegs that are better than expected. And, as a former Olympus shooter (from film days through point & shoot, before purchasing a Sony DSLR-type ILC), I can say that Olympus P&S cameras also rendered better-than-expected jpegs. My first decent P&S was an Olympus with a 3.2MP sensor that produced countless great images. Today I still own and occasionally shoot with a 16MP Olympus SZ-31MR, and I still own an Olympus bridge, a 12MP Olympus XZ-2 that I rarely use. Of course, the XZ-2 shoots RAW too, but its jpegs are outstanding. I've always thought that Olympus produced the best jpegs.

usnret Loc: Woodhull Il

One thing worth considering doing is to download the PDF info for all of the aforementioned cameras and decide from there which brand and model will work best for you based on what you intend to use it for. Minimum and maximum shutter speeds, aperature values, ISO range, flash range, low light performance etc, are all part the info included in PDF files.

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Or we can look at camera side-by-side comparison on dpreview.com.

usnret Loc: Woodhull Il

And your point is?

Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

Rather than search for and download various PDFs, we can see all pertinent info for a comparison by making just a few clicks on dpreview.com. One stop shopping. I'm not sure how you didn't understand my point.

Here's a link to the site and comparison tool: https://www.dpreview.com/products/compare/cameras

And here's an example, a comparison of the Sony RX10-iv with the Nikon Coolpix P1000:
https://www.dpreview.com/products/compare/side-by-side?products=sony_dscrx10iv&products=nikon_cpp1000

levinton

I bounce around with an Olympus xt30 and a 16-80 Oly lens (superb) and a 35 mm lens (tiny). Compact powerful combo.

druthven

Under less than ideal conditions you tell me. Two photos, same subject from inside Reims cathedral. One with a Nikon D7100 and the other with an iPhone Pro. Had I not had my Nikon I would have been sorely disappointed.

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robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I could have saved money but bought the fastest one = 25mph top from the factory and seats two. CA allows seniors and the disabled to do up to 30mph on the streets. Other people are limited to 15 - the 30mph is to encourage seniors and handicaped to leave their cars at home and use the scooters. Most stores with the electric shopping carts allow it to come inside also as it is the same length. It has a range of 40-50miles on a full charge. On a slight down hill street near my house I have hit 32 and it can go on dirt, gravel and paved trails in the parks or on mowed grass like a golf course. So I can leave the car at home and go to my favorite park for birds 7 miles from home, roam an hour or two and then back home.

CA says it can go on streets with 25mph limit or 35 if the local PD says OK, they do. And any street with a bike lane. The local PD says on major streets w/o a bike lane just use the sidewalk and give pedestrians the right of way.

This thing is fun. Now to get over Covid so I can go out again. Lucky me, I got the mild version with a cough and draining sinuses.

JustJill Loc: Iowa

I have also been going back and forth between those two cameras. I have printed all the information on those two. But I really like that link. Than you for posting it.

roadsideron Loc: Apache Junction, AZ

I'm trying to hone my editing skills.

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Desert Gecko Loc: desert southwest, USA

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

I agree that the iPhone is not a bridge camera and not as good as most "real" cameras. The Nikon shot is pretty sharp and a good snapshot. But...

The iPhone always uses the full available aperture and calculates exposure with shutter and ISO.

Your EXIF data on the two pics was very incomplete. I respect your decision to do that but it makes it hard to evaluate the pics.

I downloaded both pics and noticed that the Nikon shot is more than 2 MP but the iPhone shot is 444 KB. I'm not sure why that is since the iPhone should normally take a much bigger file.

My iPhone 6s and my iPhone 14 Pro take sharp pictures regardless of the light (see above). The noise will vary, of course, but your ISO appears from the EXIF to have been only 1000. It was 6400 for the Nikon. Your focal length for the iPhone was 77 so you used the telephoto lens which is F 2.8. The higher ISO for the Nikon suggests, at least, you stopped down a bit (manual exposure per EXIF).

The sensor on the Nikon is a DX (aka APS-C?). The sensor on the iPhone is tiny by comparison. So even though the iPhone has 12 MP (24 for the Nikon) the pixel sites are also much, much smaller. Larger sensors do better in low light. The APS-C format is greatly superior if all else is equal.

I am just trying to point out that the comparison may not be as obvious as those two shots suggest.

My first suspicion is that the iPhone shot is un-sharp due to camera motion. The peculiar color shift might indicate post processing but I have no information.

Again, I agree with you that an iPhone isn't a bridge camera. But I don't think the difference at reasonable enlargement levels is so great. The best camera is the one you have with you. Even better: have both!

The spider shot was taken through a double-pane window but has minimal motion blur because I was able to rest my hand on the glass. F1.8 at 1/215 sec. ISO 64. Filesize 1.8 MB. Again, the iPhone always shoots wide open. My point is that it's sharp and light level alone has no influence because of that.

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druthven

Thank you for the information and evaluation of my post. I've been "into" photography for 70 years now and with the digital age there's still a lot to learn. Much of the language, abbreviations, etc. are still Greek to me and your post has stimulated me to more investigation. If my Nikon image had come from my Raw image in LR it would have included a lot more EXIF data but I had not yet downloaded it to LR. The image was a jpeg downloaded onto the photos program that came with windows and I have not found any reference to EXIF in that program.

Outside of cropping and perhaps a little brightening there was no processing done. The color difference is probably due to the Nikon's white balance being set to 5000K.

Some of the blur could certainly be due to camera motion considering the iPhone's 1/25 sec exposure but looking at some of the stationary objects, railings and bench legs there also seems to be some subject movement.

The iPhone controlled all of the parameters of exposure so I can't speak to that. However I used the iPhone camera as most people would and the result was disappointing. I know there are programs that will allow user control of the phones camera but I have enough on my plate with the menus and controls of my Nikon D7100, D500 versus those of my Sony RX100 vii.

In retrospect with the help of your post perhaps I was a bit hasty in my condemnation of the phone camera but for whatever reason it failed in this particular case.

Nice spider.