Talk:Bridge camera

AI-Borg is a viewfinder camera. Had to remove the image from the article! U. Kulick 14:11, 23 April 2012 (PDT)

Canon G1 is a viewfinder camera. Had to remove the text from the article! U. Kulick 14:11, 23 April 2012 (PDT)

The December, 1991 issue of Petersen's Photographic magazine included a 51-page "Ultimate 35mm Buyer's Guide", beginning on page 79. Thirteen cameras were included with the heading "35mm Bridge Camera." They were the following (US-market names):

• Canon Photura
• Canon SS Mega Zoom 105
• Chinon Genesis II
• Chinon Genesis III
• Fuji Discovery 3000 ZD
• Konica Aiborg
• Minolta Freedom Zoom 105i
• Olympus IS-1
• Olympus ISZ 330
• Pentax IQZoom 105-R
• Ricoh Mirai
• Ricoh Mirai Zoom 3
• Samsung AF-Zoom 1050

As you can see, this included a mix of viewfinder and ZLR type cameras. As the term "bridge camera" was understood in the US market, it included a variety of cameras that were all seen as more full-featured than a simple point & shoot, but with enough automation to be more widely acceptable to non-expert photographers (for example, my sister, who bought an IS-1).

As I have provided a documented source for this use of "bridge camera" among English speakers, I'm reverting the edits back to what I have written. --Vox 14:48, 23 April 2012 (PDT)

On the selection of digital bridge cameras, I am still not completely satisfied, and want to look at that further. I'm not sure the sensor sizes of those models is really particularly larger than the typical compact model. --Vox 14:51, 23 April 2012 (PDT)

Please see and respond to this note above before making further edits, please!

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Petersen may have mixed up true bridge cameras with oddly looking viewfinder compacts. I think You won't classify pseudo SLRs (toy camerass looking like SLRs but with common optical viewfinder instead of reflex finder) as SLRs. I suggest to make a clear classification of bridge cameras: analog fixed lens zoom SLRs, and modern digital EVF-cameras with improved zoom optics. I own a real analog bridge and a "pseudo bridge". They are definitely not comparable. Odd things like the Photura are definitely just odd oversized compact camera designs, nothing else. U. Kulick 15:07, 23 April 2012 (PDT)

I recently aquired a small collection of 1988-1990 Popular Photography magazines, which has been the source of some of my recent wiki additions (like Category:Still video). Give me a day or two to look through these and see how the term "bridge camera" is applied there. We can only settle this issue by referring to authoritative sources from that time period—not just somebody's opinion about what words mean.

If you would like to consider the question of what defines a *digital* bridge camera, please go ahead. I don't have a strong opinion about that.--Vox 15:17, 23 April 2012 (PDT)

Historical use of the term "Bridge camera"

Here is a 1988 excerpt from Popular Photography talking about the term "bridge camera," where the viewfinder Olympus Infinity 300 Superzoom is definitely included.

There isn't really any more authoritative source than Popular Photography about how English-speaking photographers used words in different eras.--Vox 16:11, 23 April 2012 (PDT)

Here's another Google Books link, to the August, 1989 Popular Mechanics where on page 54 it says "the Olympus Infinity SuperZoom 300 built the first "bridge" between the point-and-shoot lens shutter compact and the more-versatile SLR."

"Bridge camera" in this sense refers to the seller's marketing intentions, not specifically to one design of camera. --Vox 17:22, 23 April 2012 (PDT)