This forum was recommended to me by a friend, and it looks to me to be quite interesting and useful.

By way of introduction, my principal interest in photography is for travel, and especially nature photography. I started with a simple Brownie flash camera as a teenager, including making my own contact prints. My high school graduation present was a fixed lens 35mm Minolta and later in my twenties I set up a small darkroom and got my first SLR. Shifting to an SLR turns out to have been a mistake as I wasn't ready to deal with all of the lens swapping, the associated costs, nor the heavy equipment bag I had to lug around and my interest in photography waned. Contributing factors were that my career and bringing up three children ate up most of my time.

Six years ago I started to gradually retire after a long career in IT. With partial retirement came the opportunity to travel, an African safari motivated me to find a good camera and so was delighted to see that there were now so-called super zoom bridge cameras that eliminated many of the negatives (to me) of the SLR. Also, not having paid much attention to photography for several decades, I was amazed with many of the technological advancements such as AF, anti-shake, automatic HDR, automatic bracketing, burst shooting, having video capabilities in a still camera and the ability to simultaneously take stills while filming video. So I purchased a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200. What differentiated the FZ200 from the rest of the pack was the constant aperture of f2.8 throughout the entire 25-600mm range. Back in my SLR days having that kind of aperture at 600mm was unimaginable, and now I had it in a zoom!

For nature photography, the zoom, aperture and built-in anti-shake features enabled me to take some great wildlife photos on that African trip. There was no need for a tri-pod even at 600mm because the large aperture enabled fast shutter speeds and any remaining issues were usually compensated for by the anti-shake.

After 6 years I need to repair or replace the FZ200. The zoom lever that surrounds the shutter has stopped functioning, although I can use an alternate zoom lever/button on the lens barrel. However, I would prefer to use the one near the shutter. Also, I have the feeling that the AF is not working as well as when the camera was new. Maybe there is dust on the sensor or elsewhere inside the camera body?

So, I've narrowed it down to three choices - get the FZ200 repaired, purchase an FZ300, or purchase the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX10 IV. I recognize that the Sony is far, far more expensive than the other two options, but for now let's ignore that.

Given that the FZ300 market price is around $400, I'm not sure that repair, which I would expect to probably cost in the $100-200 range, is worth pursuing. Particularly because there are new features in the FZ300 (WiFi, improved AF, dust/water resistance) that have value to me. From specs and reviews, the Sony has a much larger sensor, 70% more pixels, and a wider range of video options. Negatives for the Sony are that it weighs 14 oz. more, and at 600mm it stops down to F4 (vs remaining at F2.8 for the FZ300). Clearly, the biggest advantage in the Sony is in the sensor and the biggest disadvantage is probably the weight as I'll be wearing it around my neck for up to 10 hours a day.

I'd love to hear some opinions!

Here are some of my photos and feedback would be most welcome.

-Rob