My nephew, Dan, clued me in to the Canon SX30, one of the early "super zoom" compact cameras, back in the day. I told my father in law about it. He took one to Africa and came back with some great wildlife shots.
The SX50 HS isn't the newest camera in the line, and it doesn't have the most megapixels, but i think it hits the sweet spot for a small camera with a big zoom. It can occasionally be had at crazy great prices. It is about $350 on Amazon right now, but back in July, Canon was selling refurbished ones for $170. That is a no-brainer price. If it gets that low again this fall, and you are into birding, or wildlife photography, buy one immediately. You can't go wrong.
Now I have indeed gotten some higher quality images with a DSLR and a L series telephoto lens, but the SX50 HS's portability and bang for the buck can't be beat.
I haven't used this camera all that much actually, about 500 images over two years versus 10,000 images over four years for my T1i, but I think I'll start carrying it around more from now on.
Here are two downsized but un-cropped images from my bike ride on Saturday. One is at the 24 mm zoom setting and the other was shot from the exact same spot at the 1200 mm setting. Sorry about the tilted horizon. Can you spot the flamingo in the wide angle shot? It is right in the middle of the frame.
One secret is to take lots of shots and hope that you aren't wiggling the camera for a few of them. You know that Olympic Biathlon event where they rev up their heart rate by cross country skiing and then try to shoot at teeny tiny targets. Taking pictures while on a bike ride is similar. I've never had this kind of trouble holding a camera still when I just hopped out of a car to take a picture.
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