Which camera?

[Niels94]

Hi Guys and Girl,


I owned a Canon powershot G11 until the lens broke.. Now I am looking for a new one.
First i saw the Nikon D3200 with kit lens (18-55mm) but then i saw the Panasonic FZ200 with a 25-600mm F2.8 Lens!


I like the "proffesional" touch on the photos of the Nikon, when i compare some photo's the nikon with 18-55mm lens seems to be best overall? (macro i dont know?)
Focus distance of the Nikon is like 25cm and Panasonic 1cm!


I think 60% of the time I make photo's the are macro. Little car or motor parts / electronic things (no bugs or flys) the other 30% is house random stuff.
I dont want to but for like $300 on lenses or stuff so what is best?


Thank you!
Niels

 

[robbins.photo]

Niels, I don't own a 3200, but I do own a Nikon d5100 as well as an FZ200. As far as image quality is concerned, the Nikon will give you a much better image because of it's larger sensor. However the question to ask is, how are you going to view/print these images? If your just viewing them on a computer monitor then the FZ200 will give you more than good enough quality images for that. However the other consideration is cropping and resizing of photos. The FZ200 will give you good enough image quality that you can do some minor resizing or cropping, however your abilities there will be somewhat limited.

The nice part about the FZ200 is it's 600 mm 2.8 lens, a very handy little piece of glass to be sure - however I can tell you from experience that the FZ200 suffers from the same problem as most bridge cameras, they just really don't perform well in low light situations because of the smaller sized sensors. So if your interested in doing low light like indoor sports, DSLR will probably be a better option for you.

Given the type of photography you mentioned the FZ200 might be a good option for you, it does have good macro capabilities and if your in a situation where you can control the lighting and keep your ISO low you will probably be quite happy with the results.

This is a shot taken with the D5100:

DSC_0259 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

And this was taken with the FZ200:

P1030689 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

On the screen both look pretty good, you won't notice the differences really until you start zooming in - so you'll just have to decide for yourself how much image quality you really need. I will tell you that since the very recent arrival of the D5100 I haven't used the FZ200 at all, for the type of photography I do most often the better image quality of the 5100 just gives me far too many advantages. As a result I'll be selling my FZ200 soon and use the proceeds to buy another lens for the Nikon. But since you do a much different type of photography the 200 might be worth a good look.