Help with wide-range zoom & RAW Point & Shoot?

[shufflemoomin]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the forums and looking for advice. I'm looking for a new point & shoot that has a wide zoom range around 10x to 15x, is pocketable and also shoots in RAW format. The only product I can come across is the Finepix F550EXR & 600EXR but that 5 second wait while RAW files are written is putting me off. Is there any chance anyone out there can suggest something that might suit me?

[ceremus]

There are a range of Fuji EXR compacts that fit the bill including the one you mention, though I can't vouch for their FPS specs or their overall quality, I don't see a whole lot of reviews for them.

I think the Lumux FZ150 looks like a very good performer and meets all of your specs, except its not imminently pocketable, unless you're talking a jacket pocket. But that's fairly unavoidable really, the cameras with the long zoom ranges and more advanced feature sets are almost always going to be bridge cameras.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150 Review | Digital Camera Resource Page

Panasonic FZ150 review | Cameralabs

[shufflemoomin]

I did look at that model, but sadly being able to slip it into a jeans pocket or something is one of my main requirements. I had a camera in that format years ago and it was a pain in the butt. The Fuji seems to be the best candidate so far. I just wondered if there was anything obvious out there that I was missing.

[ceremus]

Yeah, I pretty much went to this search tool: Camera feature search: Digital Photography Review

And set to compact cameras w/ 10x zoom and up that would shoot in RAW. I got those Fuji's and a couple of Casios. Actually on the older Casio if you could find a Casio Exilim EX-FH100 it might actually be quite decent, actually finding one at a decent price though would be the challenge.

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by shufflemoomin

I'm looking for a new point & shoot that has a wide zoom range around 10x to 15x, is pocketable and also shoots in RAW format.

That's an almost-impossible combination. That wide a zoom range is difficult to make pocketable, except by using a tiny (1/2.3" class or smaller) sensor. There's no real point to using Raw on such a small sensor, so the manufacturers generally don't offer it as an option.

If you're looking for Raw, I'm thinking that you are particular about image quality. If you're particular about IQ, a 10-15x lens (and its associated sensor) isn't going to get you there. The IQ-focused compacts pretty much stay in the 4x-5x range in order to give you a reasonably good lens and sensor.

[shufflemoomin]

Well, it's not an impossible combination since there ARE cameras out there that offer it. I'm not considering RAW for image quality, I'm considering it for flexibility for the obvious reasons. As I said, I've already found products that match my requirements, I'm just making sure there aren't more than I've missed, which there was and I now know thanks to Ceremus.