Entry level DSLR Vs high zoom point & shoot (Bridge) camera

I was a normal point & shoot digital camera user before. Over the period of time, I wanted to upgrade my camera to a good camera for better picture. I have been struggling to get good comparison between high zoom point & shoot camera (Bridge camera) and entry level DSLR. But I failed to get any satisfactory information on internet. Some of them are too technical to understand. I am trying to compose some of my 3 months finding here in brief.

Popular high zoom point & shoot camera are Canon (SX50, SX40), Nikon (P510, P520, P810, P820) & Sony (HX300, HX200V, HX100V etc..).


Popular entry level DSLR are Canon (EOS 1100D), Nikon (D3100, D3200, D5100) & Sony (A37, A57).


There are some mirror less DSLR are also available in market, but we will talk in separate post about it.

Advantage of High Zoom Point & Shoot : High zoom point & zoom camera are available with zoom range staring from 20x up to 50x now. Which are great to take picture of objects which are far from your reach, as far as moon also. Here is a photo of moon taken by one of my friend using such Nikon P510.

Image quality of this type of camera is fairly good and much better than normal digital point & shoot cameras. They have started using better sensor types for this camera which can give you great picture quality.

It is easy to use when used in full auto mode, as well as give you option of using your own settings.

Advantages of DSLR : No matter which camera you use for DSLR, of any price range, picture quality will be far better than normal point & shoot camera. DSLR gives you better control over different settings to take perfect picture as per your desire.

Now a days DSLR also comes with full auto mode, so you can use that when you are new to photography. With time, you can start exploring your camera and learn using its features as per requirement to use it in manual mode.

DSLR has bigger image sensor than point and shoot camera. High zoom point & shoot camera has 1/2.3" sensor as shown in first 2 box in picture. DSLR has larger sensor, which differ in size from model to model. Just to give an idea, I have included 3 different model's sensor as last 3 boxes. This image size is up to scale and gives you real idea how big sensors are in DSLR.

DSLR gives you more options to choose lenses as per your photographic requirements. There are third party lenses are also available for you to choose your requirements and budget. :)

Bigger the sensor, better is image. Bigger sensor allows more light to enter your camera, which means more clear image. When ever you shoot indoor, which we all normally does, in small sensor, in small sensor there is high chance of noise. Noise is small white spot you see in picture. Noise reduces sharpness of your picture. DSLR has low noise because of large sensor.

To end this article, I will leave it up to your requirement to choose which cam to buy. If you have to do more outdoor shooting where you have sufficient light, and you need to shoot far objects, high zoom point & shoot is for you.

If you need better picture quality, with great control over picture settings, DSLR is best option for you.

On financial front, both type of cameras are more or less of same range all over the world.

If you have any query, you are free to ask here in comments. We will try to ans your query at best.

Happy shooting !!