We bought a bridge camera a little over 3 years ago as an impulse purchase (hubby) - Panasonic FZ-30. It cost $1000.00 plus tax, but we put it on my employee purchase program, and paid it off from my paycheck, interest free. As close to an SLR as you can get with a Leica lens (doesn't come off), manual options, 12x zoom and image stabilization. It has been a great camera and we have taken thousands of beautiful photos at Disney with it!
Last December ('07), I realized I would like a small point and shoot to use with baby as our old Canon was only 2mps, and this Panasonic was heavy and awkward with the baby as the lens does not come off. So, after much research, we settled on the top of the line Nikon Coolpix p5100. It was expensive at $389.00, plus 14% tax and extended warranty for 5 years of $70.00, so it cost us over $525.00 CDN. Much more than I wanted to spend, but again, hubby's emotions took over (are you getting the fact that he's an emotional spender?).
Fast forward to last week, when after 15 months of taking photos (it takes beautiful photos, slow, but gorgeous skin tones), I pressed power on/off and it had a malfunction. The lens would not retract. It made a funny noise and then "Lens Error" came on. After careful examination, we noticed that barrel was tilted. We have never dropped, nor bumped this camera. I am a scrapbooker who treats her cameras like her babies - when we brought it back to store, they were stunned at how pristine condition it was in for being 15 months old, but the store says we must have bumped it as they don't see this problem without a bump and Nikon probably won't fix it. We convinced them to send it in, see this thread: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2134340
We are still waiting on hearing from Nikon, but we are preparing for the worst. We will never buy another point and shoot again, so we would put the money into a DSLR - what do you think? We shoot the kids all of the time, all holidays and tons of Disney vacations. We are the family photographers in all situations as not many other relatives take photos. We shoot thousands of photos each year.
We are looking at Nikon, Canon, Sony and Olympus (would prefer a camera with SD cards though, so Sony and Olympus aren't really at the top of the list). We really don't want to spend this money right now, as we have spent a good penny on both cameras in just a few years, but if Nikon says they won't pay for repair, we don't want to be left with only one camera (we like to have 2 at all times) and like I said, the Panasonic is heavy and awkward as lens does not come off, but there is nothing wrong with it as it takes great photos and we have 2 batteries, so we are good to go.
WWYD? Would you get a DSLR, wait, or just use the Panasonic? Tiger
Last December ('07), I realized I would like a small point and shoot to use with baby as our old Canon was only 2mps, and this Panasonic was heavy and awkward with the baby as the lens does not come off. So, after much research, we settled on the top of the line Nikon Coolpix p5100. It was expensive at $389.00, plus 14% tax and extended warranty for 5 years of $70.00, so it cost us over $525.00 CDN. Much more than I wanted to spend, but again, hubby's emotions took over (are you getting the fact that he's an emotional spender?).
Fast forward to last week, when after 15 months of taking photos (it takes beautiful photos, slow, but gorgeous skin tones), I pressed power on/off and it had a malfunction. The lens would not retract. It made a funny noise and then "Lens Error" came on. After careful examination, we noticed that barrel was tilted. We have never dropped, nor bumped this camera. I am a scrapbooker who treats her cameras like her babies - when we brought it back to store, they were stunned at how pristine condition it was in for being 15 months old, but the store says we must have bumped it as they don't see this problem without a bump and Nikon probably won't fix it. We convinced them to send it in, see this thread: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2134340
We are still waiting on hearing from Nikon, but we are preparing for the worst. We will never buy another point and shoot again, so we would put the money into a DSLR - what do you think? We shoot the kids all of the time, all holidays and tons of Disney vacations. We are the family photographers in all situations as not many other relatives take photos. We shoot thousands of photos each year.
We are looking at Nikon, Canon, Sony and Olympus (would prefer a camera with SD cards though, so Sony and Olympus aren't really at the top of the list). We really don't want to spend this money right now, as we have spent a good penny on both cameras in just a few years, but if Nikon says they won't pay for repair, we don't want to be left with only one camera (we like to have 2 at all times) and like I said, the Panasonic is heavy and awkward as lens does not come off, but there is nothing wrong with it as it takes great photos and we have 2 batteries, so we are good to go.
WWYD? Would you get a DSLR, wait, or just use the Panasonic? Tiger
