Buyer's Guide: The Best Bridge Cameras

As bridges are technically similar to compact cameras, you should use the same basic criteria to pick a model. The only difference is that there's no such thing as a good entry-level bridge—a good lens with a wide focal range never comes cheap. Here are a few things to look out for when shopping for a bridge camera:

- Sensor. Look for a BSI CMOS rather than a CCD sensor, as pictures taken in low light will come out better and look less grainy. The number of Megapixels doesn't have much importance these days.

- Zoom. Bridges usually have wide-angle settings of 25 mm or under and telephoto settings of 700 mm or over. A good bridge should be a versatile camera, suitable for everything from landscape photography to snapping far-off subjects. Look at the aperture too (f/)—the lower this number, the faster the lens.

- Screen. The onscreen image shouldn't look black when you look at the screen from below (a common problem with TN screens) and the LCD should have a resolution of at least 460,000 dots for pictures to look sharp and precise.

- Viewfinder. To be honest, these are all pretty bad. It's been a good few years since we've seen a decent electronic viewfinder in a bridge camera (it was in the Minolta A2, as it happens).

- Responsiveness. We'd love to see a bridge start up in under two seconds but unfortunately these cameras tend to be rather slow! The autofocus should work in well under a second too, otherwise you'll be hanging around waiting for the camera to catch up.

Editor's Choice

Although its 24x (25 to 600 mm) zoom many not seem all that impressive in today's market, the FZ150 has the sharpest, most accurate lens of the lot, ensuring excellent picture quality at all focal lengths. The FZ150 is a responsive camera and has a fantastic Full HD video mode with framerates up to 50 fps. Advanced users will appreciate the RAW mode, which can be handy for post-editing images. In fact, it's difficult to find fault with this bridge, and its only real downsides are a slightly slow start-up time and a typically bridge-worthy (read sub-standard) electronic viewfinder.

Two Alternatives

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