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[philscott]

Hi everyone,

I've previously used basic compacts and want to step up to a bridge or quality travel compact with a budget of up to c£300.

Having extensively researched various sites/reviews online, it seems I have a choice between size and quality and I need help in identifying the main differences in quality between the two types of cameras.

First, the best travel compact I've found is the Sony Cybershot HX9V, and this gets amazing ratings despite its tiny size.

But then there's the bridges, which I'd presume (but don't know why) are better cameras. No stand-out performer from the looks of it, although the Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ48 gets good reviews and is still fairly small by bridge standards (the Fujifilm Finepix HS20 EXR gets good reviews, but at >600g is probably too heavy for me).

I'll be using the camera for travelling/nature/landscape shots mainly.

So I have the following questions please:
- what is the technical difference in picture quality/lenses used/stability at zoom between these two cameras?
- is the FZ48 the best bridge/superzoom around that price and weight?
- how important is the "softness" i keep reading about at high ISO's, and what does this actually mean??

Many thanks for your help - it's pretty confusing for a beginner out there!

Cheers,

Phil