ZOOM QUestion

[phillytim]

Hey everyone - I've been a photo hobbyist for a few years now, taking lots of great shots with my Fujifilm Finepix 2800z. I love having the 6x zoon...and it's about time to choose a new camera soon to do some nightshots and higer megapixel pix.

One surprising thing I've noticed: even after the 4 years after I purchased my 2800z, cameras with higher optical zoom (4x+) are still so shockingly sparse. Why is this? Why isn't optical zoom so much better and more common...especially in small-packaged cameras?

The Panasonic DMC-LZ2 looks to be what I think would be a baseline camera in this day and age. (The reports of higher-than-should-be JPG compression scares me off from getting it, tho).

Nikon, as popular as it is in the camera arena, barely has any cameras over 3x zoom.

What friggin' gives?!!!!!

[Rex914]

I'm assuming you mean that no compacts have zooms over 4x. There are more than enough ultrazooms, but those are bulky.

1) Larger zooms call for more complicated camera designs since they take more room inside the camera to contract.

2) Larger zooms are much more expensive to make. And this gets transferred to the customer.

3) Larger zooms sacrifice image quality and are "slower."

[Balrog]

while everything technological keeps getting better and better at an unprecedented pace, the art of lens making is still unfortunately mundane -- and the optics are still the most important part of the camera ..
You'll see megapixels, processing speed and whatnot increasing by leaps and bounds, but don't expect good glass will get better and / or cheaper at anywhere near that rate...

[speaklightly]

Balrog-

Consider this: Suppose Fuji took their F-10 imager which has received so much attention for its ability to go to a maximum of 1600 ISO with much less noise aznd which will soon be reviewed on this website. The advancements contained in that imager, may indeed be the forerunner of a whole new generation of digital cameras. Suppose Fuji came out as a 12X optical zoom digital camera with that same F-10 imager. I would call that an upset.

Look closely at the F-10 images (and there are many of them already posted all over the Internet) they rival the output of the Canon 350XT and do it at a cost of about $325 on the Internet. That should get some attention.

Sarah Joyce

[Balrog]

That's true, the F10 is really amazing ... and I, for one, am really hoping Fuji will put that sensor (or a close relative) into their S5100 replacement (and hopefully add stabilization, too ). Still, that's a breakthrough in sensor technology, not optics ... you'd still probably at best be able to pair it with a 12X lens, not much more than that. I'm was just pointing out that we can't expect all fields to advance at rates comparable to Moore's Law ... high optical zooms still require sizable lenses - the sensor can only keep getting smaller to a limit .. which admittedly is being pushed by Fuji with their SuperCCDs and Canon with the CMOS technology - but I think expecting much more than 3 to 4X zoom in pocket-sized cameras is slightly unreasonable. I'm still rather amazed that the FZ5 has all of what it does in a package that small....