best mega zoom cameras

Which camera has better picture quality ,speed (fps),BETTER CAMERA OVERALL??canon sx10,olympus sp-570,panasonic fz-28,or fuji 8100

I think I like them in the order you list. The SX10 is highly rated and gets great marks. The SP570 builds on the great work don't by the 550 & 560 (of which I have owned both).

thanks

We are in a quandry re: choosing our first digital and love the zoom feature -- can't decide between SX10is and the FZ28 -- heard the SX10 is not great in daylight -- can you offer any suggestions? Joy

User reviews at C'Net and at Amazon have mostly nothing but praise for the SX10. And I haven't read anything about it being bad in daylight.

The FZ28 also gets stellar marks from users.

My suggestion is to head over to this site and compare sample images side by side. That'll give you some clue as to which performs better across the board.

None of the above are the best of the superzooms, in my opinion, but the ones you mentioned all have roles to fill. The Olympus SP 570, Nikon P80 (A better Camera in my opinion than the P90), and Fuji s8100Fd for all practical purposes are the same camera, if you limit the ISO to 200 (You do this by shooting in P mode on the Fuji). Grain at higher ISO settings while shooting, and its user manual/menu system, is the Fuji's main weakness but to be completely honest none of the Super zooms you listed do spectacularly well at high ISO settings in my opinion. The street price of the Fuji Camera is $229 right now- and you can get it on clearance for as low as $189.00 right now (Its main strength is its price) with an average selling price of $229. The Fuji cameras main selling point is that it is $40-$150 dollars cheaper than the other cameras and doesn't do any worse of a job than any of the others. In other words compared to all the cameras the Fuji Camera compares middle of the road on everything you would look at, compared to the others, and never the worse performer on any of them but will save you some cash, and who doesn't like to save cash.

Between the Fz28 and SX10 the FZ28 is much faster.

A side by side comparison of the Fuji, Canon, Lumix, and Nikon P90 Superzooms from infosync.....

http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/digital-cameras/compare/?name1=Nikon+Coolpix+P90&name2=Canon+PowerShot+SX10+IS&name3=FujiFilm+FinePix+S8100fd&name4=Panasonic+Lumix+DMC-FZ28&compare=Compare


Anyhow I would really compare the Canon SX 1 (Faster and better specs than the SX 10- got my hands on one yesterday), Nikon L100 (Of the superzooms I tried I liked its images in the store lighting the best and really was the easiest to take good photos in the store with), Sony HX1 (Still need to get my hands on this one), Lumix FZ28, and Fuji FinePix s100fs (I liked this ones performance and handling the best- Manual gear based focusing is more important than you think- shoots faster than the Sony Entry level SLRs and the Nikon D40). Compare higher ISO pics between a SX 10 and a FinePix s100fs with the site listed in the post above... The Sx 10 suffers at higher ISO settings... also consider the Fuji product can shoot at full res almost twice as fast.

Infosync does side by side comparisons for up to 4 cameras;

http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/digital-cameras/compare/?name1=Nikon+Coolpix+L100&name2=Sony+Cyber-shot+DSC-HX1&name3=FujiFilm+FinePix+S100FS&name4=Canon+PowerShot+SX1+IS&compare=Compare

Digital Photography Review did a in depth review complete with side by side photos of all the cameras you are asking about... http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/q109superzoomgroup/

I have both the Sony HX1 and the Panasonic FZ28. I had a Sony H50 which took magnificant closeup and zoom photos of birds and wildflowers. Unfortunately it died and after 3 tries Sony sent me the HX1 to replace it. I had bought one earlier and sent it back as for my use it is not half the camera the H50 was. Both the FZ28 and the HX1 are too slow to use when trying to capture a photo of a moving bird. In other than perfect light conditions I have to focus 5 to 6 times before it is clear, if it clears at all. The H50 focused every time before it died. I am very disappointed in the FZ28 and the HX1. The FZ28 takes better wildflower close-ups except under low light situations. One nice feature of the FZ28 is that you can force it to flash even in auto. A nice feature of the HX1 is that the LCD can be moved so that I can take photos of flowers without lying on the ground. Since I do slide/image presentations of bird pictures for nature clubs, I need sharp images. Neither of these cameras can supply that unless the lighting is perfect. Unfortunately birds live in the woods where lighting is seldom perfect. So far I haven't met anyone who can hand hold over 15X so the 18X and 20X are wasted on me.

I have tried both of these cameras using all modes even though I use auto since it is faster. Due to arthritis in my thumb joints I cannot tolerate the weight of a SLR with a 300mm lens. If I could find a new H50 I would buy it in a minute.