With the shooting convenience of compacts combined with the creative and manual options offered by interchangeable-lens cameras, the bridge camera is a superhero of the imaging world with incredible potential in a relatively portable bodyform.
Of course, every superhero needs a superpower and in the bridge camera that is its integral zoom lens. A compact camera might have a 4x, 6x or 8x zoom range which in practice means coverage from 24mm wideangle up to 200mm telephoto in 35mm terms. For general shooting, that range is fine – but if you want frame-filling shots of distant subjects, the bridge camera is difficult to beat.
A bridge camera’s zoom lens might be 20x, 30x or more, giving the 35mm equivalent of 500mm, 1000mm or even 2000mm so all you have to do is push a control to capture that tiny songbird in the far distance. And you get all this pulling power without
