Fujifilm's excellent bridge camera, the FinePix HS50EXR

It's big, it's heavy and it's got a very long lens. I'm Josh Goldman and this is Fujifilm's Finepix HS50EXR. It's Fuji's flagship mega zoom featuring a 42x zoom lens that goes from 24 mm to 1,000 mm and it's a manual zoom which makes it very nice for shooting faster moving subjects since you can quickly zoom in and out compared to a motorized zoom though the movement is a big jerky so it isn't great for movies. It does however make this camera feel more like an SLR especially with its manual focus ring, the flip out LCD and the high resolution electronic viewfinder and it's new cue button that lets you quickly access the bulk of your important settings in a nice, easy to navigate interface. You also get other high-end features like hot shoe and mic input and it's also one of the few mega zooms that can shoot in raw and raw plus JPEG. Now, just because it has some things in common with an SLR doesn't mean it performs like one. Its sensor is still small compared to a digital SLRs so its pictures won't be as good and despite improve focusing, its performance lags behind an SLR as well, so again, not an SLR. It is however excellent for a mega zoom. Its new sensor uses Fuji's EXR technology that improves dynamic range and low light performance though it does have the resolution to 8 megapixels which is still plenty for most needs. The dual autofocus system does give it faster autofocus speeds especially noticeable to wide end and it is loaded with a lot of shooting options and controls. It's definitely better for more advanced user but still great for someone who needs a family camera or someone who's primarily an automatic snapper that wants to grow. I'm Josh Goldman and that's the Fujifilm Finepix HS50EXR.