4 ms·

What I can't figure out is how, in this day and age, to get a digital camera that does both macro and telephoto without requiring interchangeable lenses. 15 ye

What I can't figure out is how, in this day and age, to get a digital camera that does both macro and telephoto without requiring interchangeable lenses. 15 years ago, you'd get a Canon Powershot S1 or some other "bridge" camera, but as far as I can tell the industry stopped making those. My S5 just recently broke, and for my purposes (bugs, plants, and birds) I really need something that has excellent macro without having to carry around a whole bunch of kit, but can also zoom in on stuff in the distance. Last I checked (5 years ago) there was nothing on the market, so I just bought an unopened S5 off of eBay. -.- Maybe things have improved since?

zacherates 6y ago
Camera sales have fallen off a cliff in the last ten years as people increasingly rely exclusively on their smartphones. This has lead to camera companies simplifying their product lines (or simply going out of business). That being said: Interchangeable lens are great. Join us on the dark side :-)
- phyzome 6y ago
  Ouch, yeah, so the situation may actually be getting worse. The best camera is the one you have... and I'm not going to have any if I have to carry around extra lenses. Most of my photos are spur of the moment so I rely on being able to carry around my camera all the time. Realistically, I'm only going to carry around an integrated lens camera, no bigger than a Powershot S5 (which is already pretty big!)
  - zacherates 6y ago
    Just because you can change the lenses on your camera, doesn't mean you have to. There are zoom lenses with pretty extreme ranges that are even pretty compact like the Olympus 14-150mm and slightly pricier 12-200mm for Micro Four-Thirds. Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for MFT, realistically, it's a system that probably doesn't have too much of a future unfortunately (though not currently defunct at the time of this writing). If you're more concerned about the future of the system than compactness, there are full frame superzoom lenses like the 18-400mm from Tamron (for Canon EF or Nikon mounts). One of the big benefits of interchangeable lens systems is not necessarily the ability to collect a bunch of glass and swap it out constantly (that's more of risk actually), but rather to figure out the glass that suits the shooting you do and use that. When I was getting started, I bought a bunch of different primes, and it took me a while to settle down, but since I got the Canon L-series standard zoom (1993 vintage), it's just the lens that's on my camera that I use all the time.

zacherates 6y ago

Camera sales have fallen off a cliff in the last ten years as people increasingly rely exclusively on their smartphones. This has lead to camera companies simplifying their product lines (or simply going out of business). That being said: Interchangeable lens are great. Join us on the dark side :-)

phyzome 6y ago
Ouch, yeah, so the situation may actually be getting worse. The best camera is the one you have... and I'm not going to have any if I have to carry around extra lenses. Most of my photos are spur of the moment so I rely on being able to carry around my camera all the time. Realistically, I'm only going to carry around an integrated lens camera, no bigger than a Powershot S5 (which is already pretty big!)
- zacherates 6y ago
  Just because you can change the lenses on your camera, doesn't mean you have to. There are zoom lenses with pretty extreme ranges that are even pretty compact like the Olympus 14-150mm and slightly pricier 12-200mm for Micro Four-Thirds. Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for MFT, realistically, it's a system that probably doesn't have too much of a future unfortunately (though not currently defunct at the time of this writing). If you're more concerned about the future of the system than compactness, there are full frame superzoom lenses like the 18-400mm from Tamron (for Canon EF or Nikon mounts). One of the big benefits of interchangeable lens systems is not necessarily the ability to collect a bunch of glass and swap it out constantly (that's more of risk actually), but rather to figure out the glass that suits the shooting you do and use that. When I was getting started, I bought a bunch of different primes, and it took me a while to settle down, but since I got the Canon L-series standard zoom (1993 vintage), it's just the lens that's on my camera that I use all the time.