who and why buy a superzoom camera?
if you are only taking family pictures inside the house or on days out, a superzoom camera is a little overkill. most compact digital cameras by the traditional, canon, nikon, olympus, fuji, kodak and pentax would come with at least 3x optical zoom. this is quite sufficient for family portrait needs.
the superzoom would a camera for the photograhy enthusiast. it gives you a range of creative options and full manual control. so if you really enjoy photography as a hobby or that you like to combine your photographic interest with other interests such as birdwatching, field sports or spying on the neighbour, these cameras would be the ideal accompaniment for such ocassion. they also have a viewfinder like slrs that allow you to compose your picture even in very bright conditions.
why the manual controls? photography, at its very basic form is the capture of light on a photosensitive medium. how you capture the rays of light is reflected in the final result. for those of you used to old film cameras, you might have had a few pictures that turned out too bright or too dark. with the advent of the digital camera we can delete the poorly lit images or exceptionally bright ones from the camera memory. flash can be used during the day or at night to illuminate the subject to an extent. however, flash photography is very complicated and most professional portrait photographers prefer to have a more natural look to the skintone which flashes would simply wash out. manual control allows you to take acceptable pictures in very bright light or in very low light. manual control would also allow you to freeze motion of water or give a more flowing effect.
the picture below shows an almost dreamy sunset. the colours are so vibrant and alive. this picture would have been taken in RAW format with a wide angle lens. RAW allows you to capture a subject, transfer it to your computer or laptop later for the editing of white balance, sharpness, contrast, colour curves and many other factors. an image like this did not come out of camera like you see it, this has been post processed. a camera with manual control would allow you the facility to turn out images like this.
in the picture below the water has a flowing quality about it. this has been achieved by using a slow shutter speed. it would be almost impossible to recreate such a shot with a compact camera, however, a camera with manual or aperture priority allows you to control the amount of light that you allow into the camera lens. that is what creates this softness in the water.
perhaps an even more dramatic rendition of slow or long shutter speed can be seen in the stream below. at a guess, this picture would have been taken with a 30 seconds long shutter speed. this can only be achieved through manual contols within the camera.
